Playing For The World
Right To Play Canada is proud to celebrate and support our amazing Play Ambassadors competing in Paris this Summer. It’s been a long journey, and we recognize the extraordinary efforts of our athletes to get to the world stage.
Sports unify, both in triumph and defeat. They transcend language and cultural differences. They inspire, they motivate, they excite.
But we also want to honour the work our Ambassadors do outside of competition. Sports – and play – have transformative power; the power to effect real change for children and youth all over the world. Sports build confidence, teaching teamwork and fair play. Sports promote good health and habits. And they create a safe place to experience the highs and lows of competition, without danger, without trauma. Sports and play lead to personal development, and our Ambassadors – and their work – show this in the work they do for children and youth, in Canada and all over the world.
Thank you to all our athletes, we are so excited to see you compete in Paris. Let’s go, Team Canada!
Kayla Alexander
Kayla is a member of the Canadian National Basketball team, and currently plays professionally for the Spanish Liga Femenina club Valencia. In high school she played for the Canadian National Team and during college played for the Canadian Development Team. Kayla attended Syracuse University on a four-year athletic scholarship and graduated as the women’s program’s all-time leading scorer. After coming back from two separate knee injuries she helped Team Canada qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She’s also an accomplished children’s book author, who wrote, illustrated, and published her first book, The Magic of Basketball, in 2019. Kayla is a Right To Play Ambassador and – after making the Canadian Olympic Team – visited Senegal as part of Right To Play’s Rally For Girl’s Education, promoting girl’s empowerment through sport. The 2024 Paris Olympics are Kayla's second Olympic appearance, after her debut in the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Bianca Andreescu
Bianca Andreescu is a Canadian professional tennis player and has been a Right To Play Ambassador since 2019. She has a career-high ranking of No. 4 in the world, and is the highest-ranked Canadian in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Andreescu was the champion at the US Open and the Canadian Open in 2019, defeating Serena Williams to win both titles. Bianca is making her Olympic debut in the 2024 Paris Games.
Alison Jackson
Alison Jackson is a Canadian road cyclist, who earned the biggest win of her career to date in 2023 when she won Paris-Roubaix from a breakaway that she kept alive from the race’s early kilometers. She followed it up the next month by winning the Canadian road race national championships in her native Alberta. Alison made her Olympic debut in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and has raced nine times in the world championships, including a sixth place finish in 2021.
Marissa Papaconstantinou
Marissa is a Canadian Paralympic athlete and bronze medalist who competes in the 100m and 200m T64 events. Being born without a right foot has never got in the way of Marissa Papaconstantinou pursuing anything she wanted to achieve in life. Originally a soccer and basketball player, Marissa fell in love with sprinting after being fitted for her first running prosthetic (blade) at the age of 12, by the specialists at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital whom she now serves as an ambassador for. Marissa made her Paralympic Games debut in the 2016 Rio Games.