Danielle Dorris’ status on the international Para swimming scene changed in a span of 33 seconds last summer in Tokyo.

Five years after making her Paralympic Games debut – and becoming Canada’s youngest Paralympic swimmer ever – as a 13-year-old in Rio, the Moncton, N.B., native reached the pinnacle of her sport in the Japanese capital when she shattered the world record twice on her way to claiming gold in the 50-m butterfly S7.

By touching the wall in 32.99 seconds in the final, she became the first female S7 swimmer to break the 33-second mark in the event.

Earlier in the Games, the new Canadian superstar had already captured silver in the 100 backstroke after missing the podium by a mere five hundredths in the 200 individual medley.

“It still feels surreal, really,” says Dorris, who started training with coach Ryan Allen at Club de Natation Bleu et Or in Moncton when she was 11. “If someone had told us back then that all of this would happen, I’m pretty sure we would have told them they’re nuts. The fact that it did happen, I’m extremely happy. But yeah, it’s a bit surreal.”

Dorris hopes for more surreal moments from June 12-18 in Madeira, Portugal, where she’ll be one of 32 Canadian athletes competing at the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships.

While she might have snuck up on opponents at Tokyo 2020, the now 19-year-old knows it won’t be the case this time around.

“I wouldn’t say there’s pressure. But yes, the mentality has changed in the sense that I’m going in to defend my world record in the 50 fly and probably improve my placing in my other events.

“To be able to see everybody that I raced against in Tokyo will be very fun, and it’ll be interesting to see their reactions. Hopefully we can all race to the best of our abilities.”

Dorris’ path to stardom was fast-tracked a few months before the Tokyo Games when she went through a classification review in Texas.

A very capable S8 swimmer who reached two finals at the 2019 Worlds in London, she was reclassified as an S7.

“My family and I had always thought I was not supposed to be an S8. We would always throw out the idea that I should be an S7, which turned out I was supposed to be,” says Dorris. “Since reclassification happened so close to the Games, we had to shift our thinking from being a pretty good S8 to going as a very competitive S7 and having the potential to medal.

“It really fast-tracked my career. The original plan was gain experience in Rio as a 13-year-old, make a final in Tokyo, and then hopefully medal in Paris. It was now completely changed to go straight to medalling in Tokyo.”

Allen recalls the moment he heard the news of his protégée’s reclassification.

“I was on my way to practice with my home group when Dani called me. I remember wanting to pull over to have the conversation about what that could mean for her. We were already super excited about her events as an S8. Now it was ‘OK, we need to change the focus of what your strength needs to be.’

“A few months later, last August at our staging camp in Vancouver, I asked her ‘What’s your goal for the summer?’ and she actually said ‘World record.’ I kid you not. That was the first time in all our time together that she started to think, I don’t want to say confidently, but, I think I can do this. And it happened.”

Allen, who will be in Madeira as Team Canada’s relay coach, recalls another telling moment, this one in Tokyo.

“Her first event, the 200 IM, was a frustrating miss of bronze by five one hundredths. We get down to the warm-down pool and she’s in tears and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, here we go, this is going to derail everything.’ But it was tears of happiness. It was like ‘I’m so ready now,’ and it was the final confidence booster she needed.”

After claiming her first career Paralympic medal on Day 6, silver in the 100 back, Dorris’ final event, the 50 fly, was set for the last day of swimming competition.

In the preliminaries, she clocked 33.51 to lower the previous world mark of 33.81 that had stood since 2012.

“When I looked at the clock I thought ‘Oh shoot!,’” Dorris said. “I really believed I had peaked and I was a little worried. Did I go out too strong in the morning, am I going to be able to do it again tonight?

“I had to have a conversation with Ryan. He said ‘Yes, that’s the time I thought you were going to do tonight, but let’s see if you can do better. You’re ready, you know what to do, this is your swim, have fun with it.’”

And do better she did, shaving off another half second in the final to become the first sub-33 female S7 swimmer in the event.

“I hit the water and I was off. I blocked everything out until I touched the wall. Then I looked at the clock and went ‘Oh! That’s never been done before.’ And then I started laughing my head off. I think I was in shock and that’s why I started laughing. Then when I saw Ryan I started bawling my eyes out.”

“Literally, her first stroke,” said Allen when asked when he knew his pupil was going to win. “Did I think she was going to be that fast? No. Because no one ever had.”

Now a Paralympic champion, Dorris received a hero’s welcome of sorts when she got back home.

“My entire team from my home club was at the airport, there was a lot of people. They thought it would be a good idea to get me a limo to get home. So we got in a limousine, Ryan, his wife, my parents, my sister and I, drinking champagne on the drive home… at 2 o’clock in the morning.

“There was quite a bit of media attention. The Province of New Brunswick and the City of Moncton acknowledged my accomplishments. Being from a smaller province, being able to represent New Brunswick was very special.”

Despite her successful partnership with Allen, Dorris felt it was time to take the next step after Tokyo and moved to Montreal to train with coach Mike Thompson at the High Performance Centre – Quebec.

The move was actually scheduled to happen before the Games but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The big thinking was a change in environments,” says Dorris. “I had had that conversation with Ryan and he said ‘Yes, go, experience something different.’ Same with my parents, they were fully supportive of my decision, to go away, go to a High Performance Centre where I would have access to everything I could possibly need.”

Thompson is optimistic about his new swimmer’s chances at the upcoming world championships.

“Coming off a world record, we had a lot of measures on Danielle. She had also been doing monitoring for us the year before. It was as if she had been there for a while because we had all the information we needed.

“It was pretty clear she had a goal she wanted to achieve. It was more about us finding the right mix of training, resting, and new type of strength and conditioning she hadn’t done before.”