Canada's Danielle Dorris swims to silver in women's butterfly S5-7 at Para Pan Pacific Championships

Two-time Paralympic champion Danielle Dorris earned Canada’s first medal to open the three-day Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, grabbing silver in the women’s 50-metre butterfly S5-7 final on Friday night in Walnut, Calif.

The Moncton, N.B. native led wire-to-wire and touched the wall first in 34.42 seconds after one length of the open-air pool at Mt. San Antonio College, less than a half-second off her 32.99 S7 world record.

But Katie Kubiak of the United States was awarded the gold medal after amassing 1,060 points to Dorris’s 941. In Friday’s morning preliminaries, Kubiak established a new world record for S5 of 37.21, almost a full second faster than her previous record.

Her teammate, Mallory Weggemann collected 926 points in the final for bronze.

Dorris claims Canada’s 1st medal of the Para Pan Pacific Championships

As a multi-class event that combines athletes from different physical, visual and intellectual impairments, winners of each race are decided by a mathematical points formula at Para Pan Pacs, not who touches the wall first.

"It's pretty cool to have the first medal for Canada. It's the first time it's happened to me," Dorris, one of Canada's four captains at the competition, told Devin Heroux of CBC Sports. "I'm quite happy with that swim, considering how my year was going, [even though] it's not the time I wanted."

Points are awarded based on how close a swimmer’s time is to the designated world record standard for their specific class. In other words, the closer the time is to the relevant record, the higher the points.

Dorris, who will turn 24 on Sept. 22, was born with underdeveloped arms, a condition known as bilateral radial dysplasia.

Danielle Dorris wins Canada's first medal of the 2026