New Brunswick is golden after star swimmer breaks world record twice

Moncton’s Danielle Dorris has started off the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games with a fourth place in the 200m Individual Medley SM7 and missed the podium by a mere 0.05 seconds.

At her second event, the 100m Backstroke S7, she touched the wall after 1:21.91 to finish second and take home her first Paralympic Games medal. Danielle Dorris said, it felt “very surreal […] like I’m going to wake up from a dream back home in Canada and this has never happened. But here I am with a medal”, which marks the first individual PG medal for New Brunswick in this century as the last one in individual sports dates back to 1996.

On the final day of the swimming competition, the 18-year-old was crowned Paralympic champion with an outstanding performance in the 50m Butterfly S7, by not just breaking the world record once but twice on the same day. Danielle Dorris roared to her gold medal (the first ever individual for NB) in an explosive time of 32.99 seconds after having kicked things off by surpassing the world record set by US silver medallist Mallory Weggemann in June 2012 by 0.30 seconds to 33.51 seconds in her qualifying heat in the morning session that also saw the fall of the Paralympic Record which has stood since Beijing 2008.

Having been the youngest team member in Rio 2016 and with only three years until the next Paralympic Games to be held in Paris in 2024, New Brunswick can already look forward to what Danielle Dorris will be able to achieve at her third Games.