New assistant coach for Canada

Laryssa Biesenthal has been named Rowing Canada’s first ever female full time national team coach.

Coach of the women’s lightweight double at Athens, Biesenthal will take up her position as assistant national team coach dividing her time between Canada’s two training centres in Victoria, British Columbia and London, Ontario.

Canada’s High Performance Director Alan Roaf said in rowing Canada’s press release; “Laryssa has been an outstanding competitor over the years, winning several medals at the Olympics and World Championships. She brings that excellence to her coaching role and has already made a significant contribution to the national team as a coach over the last two seasons.”

Biesenthal, 33, was a member of the 1996 and 2000 Olympic rowing teams winning bronze at Atlanta in the quad and bronze at Sydney in the eight. She has also won six World Rowing Championship medals.
Biesenthal started coaching high schools teams in 1996 while she was still rowing and in 2002 she was made technical administrative assistant for Rowing Canada. She has since coached teams for the Under 23 World Regatta as well as the Pan American Games and the Commonwealth Regatta.

Last year, Biesenthal was the coach of the lightweight women’s double that finished first at the 2004 BearingPoint Rowing World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland, and eighth at the Olympics in Athens.

Trained as a landscape architect Biesenthal lives in Victoria with her husband, Iain Brambell – also an accomplished rower.

Biesenthal says her inspiration comes from Canadian rowing heroes Silken Laumann and Emma Robinson.

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