Hannah Bennison
It’s in those split-seconds between the gritty push of her powerful stride and graceful gait of her follow-through that Hannah Bennison paints her best picture. How best to describe it? “She almost floats,” says her coach, the former Olympian Malindi Elmore. “She has a huge engine, an aerobic capacity that is beyond her years, but ultimately what it comes down to is her passion for the sport.
“Just like everything else she does in her life, she wants to be the best. There are a lot of natural abilities, but she is also the kind of hard worker that you need to be.”
Put it all together and you get one of the Top 25 girls’cross-country runners in the world.
In late March, Bennison, at the age of 17, topped all Canadians in the field en route to a 24th-place finish at the IAAF World Under-20 championships in Kampala, Uganda.
Add a Canadian national junior title and the last three B.C. high school titles, as well as the 31-yearold record she broke on the track in the 3,000 metres as a 10th grader at the 2015 B.C. high school track and field championships, and you have a student-athlete whose talents seem more than generational.
And she’ll be taking those talents to the East Coast of the U.S. this fall, running for a Providence College program that is annually among the best in NCAA Division 1.
“Hannah has the tools to be an international-level athlete and compete for Canada on major teams like the Olympics,” says Elmore. “She has the mind and body to be a force to be reckoned with. It’s what she was born to do. Running is her happy place so it comes naturally to her to work hard.”
And for all the investment, the intangible returns have been priceless.
“The biggest thing my sport has given me is this huge perspective on life,” says Bennison, who a year ago battled injury serious enough to quash most of her outdoor track season, a span she devoted to other things, including completing her Grade 10 piano studies.
“It’s not always going to be fun and not every day is going to be a good day. It can be gruelling, but I have learned how important it is to have vigour and a huge passion in life.”
SCHOOL: Vernon FRESHMAN’S FUTURE: Providence College