'Racing against myself': Canadian swimmer Danielle Dorris hungry for more after retaining Paralympic title

Danielle Dorris couldn't hear the roaring crowd at La Défense Arena as she torpedoed through the water, hyper-focused on her mission to improve on greatness.

The Canadian Para swimmer, constantly striving to be faster than before, spares little thought for anything else during a race — including her competitors.

While they are thinking about dethroning Dorris, she is in a race against herself.

Dorris is the best to ever do it in the women's 50-metre butterfly S7 event, and her successful title defence at the Paris Paralympics was yet further confirmation that she is in a league of her own.

"The way I view that race is me racing against myself," Dorris told CBC Sports. "Because I am the world-record holder, I'm trying to be better than myself. Everybody else, I kind of forget what they're doing and just focus on what I can do."

WATCH l Dorris successfully defends Paralympic title in women's S7 50m butterfly:

Incredibly, the best could still be yet to come for Dorris, who only turned 22 on Sunday.

Dorris is the only woman to ever swim under 33 seconds in her signature event, and her coach has no doubt that she will make that world record harder to break in the years ahead.

Ryan Allen has been working with Dorris for 10 years and thinks it's just a matter of time before she breaks it again, telling CBC Sports it's "100 per cent going to happen."

Dorris, who hails from Moncton, N.B., was born with underdeveloped arms due to a condition called bilateral radial dysplasia. She started swimming at 10 years old and soon caught the attention of Swimming Canada.

She broke American Mallory Weggemann's nine-year-old world record during the qualifying heats at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, stopping the clock in 33.51 seconds.