By Jim Morris

Each athlete brings their own expectations to the Parapan American Games.

“I’m hoping it will be my redemption meet,” said Para-swimmer Sarah Mailhot.

A strong performance at the Parapans will help mend Mailhot’s confidence which was battered and bruised at the 2012 London Paralympics.

A back injury turned Mailhot’s Paralympic dreams into a nightmare. She called her 13^th-place finish in the S8 400-meter freestyle “totally awful” and then scratched herself from the 100-m backstroke. After a week out of the pool she swam the 100-m freestyle “just to say I had done it.”

The back healed after Mailhot returned to Quebec City but the mental scars remained.

“It took me a long time to get over it,” said the 25-year-old who has spina bifida. “I had to work with a sports psychologist.

“At first every time I would go to a swim meet, every time there was a little pressure, I would crack totally. I would start panicking.”

Mailhot realized she had to get back to the basics and remember why she started swimming in the first place.

“I was thinking way too much,” she said. “It took me a long time to start enjoying just the competitive side again, go out there and have fun.

“It probably took me two years to say I really enjoyed swimming again.”

Mailhot proved she was returning to her own form at the Speedo Can Am Para-swimming championships this spring. She reached four finals and earned herself a spot on the Parapan team.

“It’s the first time I am back on the national team since London,” she said. “I am really hoping it goes well but I’m not trying to put too much pressure on myself.”

Craig McCord, the national Para-swimming coach, said Mailhot’s Parapan results will show if she’s back on the road to competing at next year’s Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“You can classify her Paralympic experience in London as a major disappointment,” said McCord. “With those adversities come triumphs as well.

“Sarah has got to the point now where she is more self-reliant, more confident in her ability. She has grown as a person.”

“I was thinking way too much,” she said. “It took me a long time to start enjoying just the competitive side again, go out there and have fun.

Mailhot was born with spina bifida, a birth defect that results in the spine not developing properly in the first trimester of pregnancy. Growing up a physiotherapist suggested she try swimming. Getting into the pool opened up a new world.

“I just feel good when I am in the water,” she said. “I also like the feeling of always going beyond what I though was possible.”

The benefits were both physical and mental.

“When I was younger I was really good at school but I didn’t have any special talents,” Mailhot said. “I was never good in sports, I wasn’t super good at anything.

“Swimming I was good at. I liked that feeling.”

Swimming also fanned Mailhot’s competitive flames.

“I didn’t know I was a competitive person before I started swimming,” she said. “Once I got in the water I started seeing people (and) I thought I can beat them.

“After I realised that I would do anything to beat anyone. It just makes me feel so good to know I am really good at something.”

Her success in the pool carried over to life outside the water.

“It definitely helped me with my self-confidence,” she said. “I’m way more outgoing than I used to be.

“I walk with my head high and I’m proud of what I have done in the past and I am proud of what is to come.”

Mailhot, who works as a translator, is fluent in both French and English. She also speaks some Spanish and German plus a little Russian. To her, learning a different language is like trying to master a new stroke.

“I have to work a little bit to learn the new language but it’s not as hard as other people I know,” she said.