Sienna Hearn

Good friendships are what drew Sienna Hearn to water polo and set her on the path to the Paris Olympics.

“My friends were what made me get started, then I stuck with it because of how much fun it is being part of a team,” Sienna said.

“I played a lot of sport growing up and I tried it with friends and stuck with it ever since.”

Growing up on Sydney’s northern beaches, Sienna started her water polo journey at the Sydney Northern Beaches Breakers Water Polo Club at the age of seven.

She excelled as a junior and 13 years later, at the 2022 FINA World League Intercontinental Cup in Peru Sienna made her senior national team debut for the Aussie Stingers.

After strong performances in the Australian Water Polo League with the UTS Balmain Tigers, she was in the Stingers squad for the 2024 World Championships in Doha. Australia finished sixth, beating Britain 20-8 in the round of 16 before going down by a point to the USA in the quarter-finals.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Sienna and the Stingers became the most successful Australian water polo team ever at an overseas Olympic Games.

Their silver medal performance was close to being gold, going down 11-9 to world number one Spain in the gold medal match.

They got there with an undefeated run in the group matches against the Netherlands, Hungary, China and Canada with two of those wins coming via penalty shootout. They took out Greece in the quarter-finals and world powerhouse the USA in the semis in another penalty shootout.

Away from the pool, Sienna is studying to become a school teacher.