Mary Jibb captures Canada's 1st gold medal at Para swimming worlds in record time

Mary Jibb has set the tone for Canada at the Para swimming world championships.

Jibb earned the first gold medal for the 19-member team in Singapore, lowering her Canadian and Americas record to two minutes 32.90 seconds in the women's 200-metre individual medley SM9 final on Monday.

In her morning preliminary race, the 18-year-old broke the previous Canadian/Americas mark of 2:37.54 by Stephanie Dixon from the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing.

The 2:32.90 performance on the second day of competition would have won gold at the Paralympics last summer in Paris.

"I definitely feel like it hasn't sunk in yet. A year ago, I would never have dreamed that I would be standing on top of the world podium," Jibb, making her world championships debut, told Swimming Canada from the OCBC Aquatic Centre within the Singapore Sports Hub.

Fourth in the 200 IM final after the opening butterfly, Jibb moved into second spot midway through the race after the backstroke and held the position through the breaststroke, 50 metres from the finish.

WATCH | Jibb tops field in women's 200m IM SM9 final in Canadian record time:

Mary Jibb wins Canada's 1st gold medal at the World Para Swimming Championships

She dominated the final leg to prevail by a comfortable margin over Anastasiya Dmytriv of Spain (2:35.36), the 2024 Paralympic bronze medallist. Reigning Paralympic gold medallist and two-time world champion Zsófia Konkoly of Hungary took bronze (2:36.09).

"We've been working really hard on my breaststroke. And then freestyle, I just had to bring it home," Jibb said. "In the last 25 [metres], I saw in my peripherals that there was nobody, so I thought, 'I got [the gold].'"

Should Jibb now be considered one of the top S9 swimmers in the world?

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