Danielle Kisser

 Danielle Kisser has overcome a major injury to return to the forefront on the Canadian Para swimming national team.

In October 2014 she underwent a double-leg osteotomy. The surgery involved her tibia and fibula bones being broken, screws installed, and her ankles rotated to realign with her knees. She was in a wheelchair until January 2015. 

That put her out of contention for the 2015 Parapan American Games and the 2016 Paralympic Games. A member of the Parapan Am Games team in 2011 at age 14, her talents resurfaced in 2018 with two medals at the Pan Pacific Para Championships. Then in 2019 she competed at the world championships and is now headed to Tokyo for her first Paralympics.

She made headlines in 2020 during the pandemic, as she documented on her YouTube channel how she built her own pool in her backyard so she could continue training. She was then named the inaugural winner of the “People’s Choice Award for Most Viral Moment of the Year” at the 2020 Canadian Sports Award. 

Her father taught her to swim breaststroke as a child. While she played other sports, in 2008 her brother's swim coach encouraged her to pursue swimming.