Two-time Paralympic gold medalist Danielle Dorris clinched Canada’s first medal at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships by securing silver in the women’s 50-meter butterfly S5-7 final on Friday evening in Walnut, California. The Moncton, New Brunswick native maintained the lead throughout the race and finished first in 34.42 seconds, just shy of her S7 world record of 32.99 seconds.
Despite Dorris touching the wall first, Katie Kubiak of the United States took home the gold medal with 1,060 points compared to Dorris’s 941 points. Kubiak set a new world record for S5 during the morning preliminaries with a time of 37.21 seconds, nearly a second faster than her previous record. Dorris’s teammate, Mallory Weggemann, secured the bronze medal with 926 points in the final.
The Para Pan Pacific Swimming Championships employ a points formula to determine winners, considering various impairments among athletes, rather than solely the finishing order. Dorris expressed her joy at securing Canada’s first medal, stating, “It’s pretty cool to have the first medal for Canada. It’s the first time it’s happened to me.” Dorris, who will celebrate her 24th birthday on September 22, was born with bilateral radial dysplasia, leading to underdeveloped arms.
Dorris also participated in the mixed 4×100 medley 34-point relay later that evening, contributing to a Canadian record-breaking performance alongside Fernando Lu, Katie Cosgriffe, and Reid Maxwell, resulting in a bronze medal with a time of 4 minutes and 40.11 seconds. The previous national record of 4:42.32 was set at the 2023 World Para Championships in Manchester, England.
Sebastian Massabie of Toronto secured a bronze medal in the men’s 50 fly S5-7 final, recording 837 points. Massabie, the S4 Olympic champion in 2024, finished with the slowest time in the field at 36.07 seconds. He holds multiple Canadian and world records from the 2024 Paralympic swimming trials and resides in Surrey, British Columbia, affected by cerebral palsy on his left side.
Nicholas Bennett earned a silver medal in the men’s 200 freestyle S2-5, accumulating 981 points, trailing behind Gabriel Bandeira with 1,008 points. Bennett, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at three years old, claimed gold in the 100 breaststroke SB14 and the 200 individual medley SM14 at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.
Ken Stroud, representing Richmond, British Columbia, secured the second position in the men’s 100 free S4-6, S8, S10, S12, with Akito Minai of Japan claiming the gold medal. The Para Pan Pacific Championships in Walnut, California, mark a significant step towards the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles, providing valuable competition experience under similar conditions.
