Another Canadian record for Jibb at Para worlds

SINGAPORE (Swimming Canada) – Mary Jibb is taking a liking to rewriting the Canadian record book.
 
For the second straight night at the World Para Swimming Championships, the 23-year-old from Muskoka, Ont., set an S9 national mark, this time in the women’s 100-m butterfly.
 
While her performance wasn’t quite enough to stand on top of the podium, as was the case on Monday in the 200 individual medley, the world championships rookie was thrilled with her 1:10.29 swim, good for fifth place.
 
“I’m really happy with that race. That was the plan, to go 1:10.00, maybe even 1:09.00, so I’m very happy with that,” said Jibb, who had posted a personal best 1:11.44 in the morning preliminaries.
 
“Despite the fast times from this morning, the plan was we were going to race the girls tonight, and I feel like I did a really good job of that. My backend speed was really good. So overall, just super happy.”
 
In the final, the teenager was seventh at the turn but was the fourth fastest coming back to move up two spots over the final 50 metres.
 
Xu Jialing of China defended her title in 1:08.24. Hungary’s Zsófia Konkoly (1:08.49) and Australia’s Emily Beecroft (1:08.65) took silver and bronze to replicate their results from the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
 
Jibb, who placed eighth in the 100 fly last summer in her Paralympics debut, isn’t just breaking any records in Singapore. The two national marks she has lowered so far belonged to Canadian great Stephanie Dixon since Beijing 2008, when Jibb was one year old.
 
Dixon had clocked 1:11.04 in the 100 fly in the Chinese capital city.
 
“Looking at those times, six months ago, they seemed so big, I would never have dreamed of swimming this fast,” said Jibb, who moved from Ontario to the west coast last March to train with the Pacific Sea Wolves coached by Jy Lawrence in Surrey, B.C.  

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