Tess Routliffe

Tess Routliffe delivered the best international performance of her career at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships held in Manchester, England. She won two gold (200m individual medley and 100 breaststroke), a silver (50 butterfly) and a bronze (100 freestyle) at those worlds. 

Just a year earlier at the 2022 worlds in Portugal she notched a gold, silver and bronze in her comeback from back injury which cost her an opportunity to compete at the 2020 Paralympic Games.

At the London 2019 World Para Swimming Championships. Routliffe claimed three medals, including silver in the 100-m breaststroke SB7 and bronze in the 200-m individual medley SM7, both in Canadian record time, as well as bronze in the 4×100-m freestyle relay 34 points. 

Routliffe had been progressing at a steady clip entering the 2019 worlds. At the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, she finished third in the S7 50-m butterfly in a personal best time.

Two years earlier at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Routliffe brought home her first Paralympic medal, a silver in the 200-m individual medley in Canadian record time. She made the finals in four other events: 100-m breaststroke (4th), 50-m freestyle (5th), 100-m freestyle (6th) and 50-m butterfly (7th).

Routliffe burst on the international stage in 2015. At the Parapan American Games in Toronto she won four gold medals with victories in the 50-m freestyle, 100-m freestyle, 100-m backstroke, 100-m breaststroke, as well as silver in the 200-m individual medley. 

She raced in nine events a couple of weeks earlier at the 2015 IPC World Championships, winning silver in the 200-m IM. She also posted five fourth-place finishes.