Tess
Routliffe

Tess Routliffe qualified for her second Paralympic Games beating the A standard in three events at the 2024 Paralympic Swimming Trials (50 Fly S7, 100 Breast SB7, 200 IM SM7). Routliffe made her Paralympic Games debut in 2016 but a back injury prevented her from competing at Tokyo 2020.

She 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.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

2018 Commonwealth Games… 2016 Paralympic Games… 2015, 2019, 2022, 2023 IPC World Championships and 2015 Parapan American Games…

PERSONAL

Started swimming at age three with Dorado Stars in Caledon, Ont… She was born with hypochondroplasia, a condition which affects the conversion of cartilage into bone, causing shortened limbs (dwarfism)… Eldest sister, Erin, is a professional tennis player… Sister, Tara, plays volleyball under a university athletic scholarship in the United States… Communications and human relations at Concordia University in Montreal… She and her sisters were born in New Zealand while her parents were travelling around the world, before they moved back to Canada.

NOTABLE INTERNATIONAL RESULTS

• 2023 World Championships 200m individual medley 1st
• 2023 World Championships 100m breaststroke 1st
• 2023 World Championships 50m butterfly 2nd
• 2023 World Championships 100m freestyle 3rd
• 2022 World Championships 100m breaststroke 1st
• 2022 World Championships 200m individual medley 2nd
• 2022 World Championships 50m butterfly 3rd
• 2019 IPC World Championships 100m breaststroke 2nd
• 2019 IPC Word Championships 200m individual medley 3rd
• 2019 IPC World Championships 4X100m freestyle relay 3rd
• 2018 Commonwealth Games 50m butterfly 3rd
• 2016 Paralympic Games 200m individual medley 2nd
• 2015 Parapan American Games 50m freestyle 1st
• 2015 Parapan American Games 100m freestyle 1st
• 2015 Parapan American Games 100m backstroke 1st
• 2015 Parapan American Games 100m breaststroke 1st
• 2015 Parapan American Games 200m individual medley 2nd
• 2015 IPC World Championships 200m individual medley 2nd