Canada’s Dorris speeds to gold, Routliffe adds bronze at Para swimming worlds

Canadians collected a medal of each color at the Para swimming world championships on Thursday.

Danielle Dorris won gold in a championship-record time of 34.01 seconds, while Tess Routliffe added bronze in 35.40 seconds in the women’s S7 50-metre butterfly event in Madeira, Portugal.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Bennett added silver in the men’s SM14 200m individual medley.

Dorris, the 19-year-old from Moncton, NB, previously won silver in the 100m backstroke in Portugal, leaving her with the same gold-silver combination she took home from the Tokyo Paralympics.

She said Thursday’s race also represented a season-best time.

“I’m feeling ecstatic right now. That’s my first gold medal at a world championship meet. It’s kinda surreal. Yes, I medaled yesterday but this is a gold medal — a little level up from that,” Dorris said in an interview posted to the Canadian Paralympic Committee Twitter account.

? @DDorrisS7 swims to a championship record in the Women’s 50m Butterfly S7 Final with? @TessRoutliffe taking the bronze! #DoubleTrouble ? @SwimmingCanada pic.twitter.com/9von5oSnZi

—@CDNParalympics

Routliffe, who missed the Paralympics with an injury, now has the full set of medals after also taking gold in the SB7 100m breaststroke and silver in the SM7 200m individual medley.

The Caledon, Ont., native credited her individual medley preparation for improving her butterfly.

“We really wanted to make my fly more consistent and I think that’s exactly what we were able to do. That was the best time for me. I’ve really been working on fly and trying to get that together so I just speeded the person next to me and had fun,” Routliffe, 23, said.

Italy’s Giulia Terzi snuck in between the two Canadians with silver in 34.83 seconds. A third Canadian in the race, Myriam Soliman, placed eighth in 43.75 seconds.

Bennett, now 18, was the youngest member of the Canadian Paralympic team in Tokyo, where he lowered the national record in each of his events but failed to reach the podium.

Worlds, then, marked a natural progression. The Parksville, BC swam a time of 2:10.23 to earn his second medal in Portugal after also snagging silver in the SM14 200m freestyle.

Nicholas Bennett swims to his second World Championships medal, a silver in the Men’s 200m Individual Medley SM14 Final ? @SwimmingCanada < a href="https://t.co/ki2UexNuLp">pic.twitter.com/ki2UexNuLp

—@CDNParalympics

It’s not the first major international meet at which Bennett’s had success either — he scored four medals at the 2019 Parapan Am Games, including three gold.

Earlier, a pair of Canadians experienced near podium misses as Felix Cowan and Abi Tripp touched fourth in their respective men’s and women’s S8 50m freestyle finals.

The letter/number modifiers in the event name indicate classification.

Swimmers are organized into different categories depending on the severity of their disability.

Classification can also be broken down by discipline: S indicates freestyle, butterfly and backstroke; SB is breaststroke; and SM represents individual medley.

Live action on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem from the Penteada Olympic Pools Complex continues Friday and Saturday at 12:05 pm ET.

More than 600 athletes from over 70 nations are competing, with 31 swimmers representing Canada.