Caledon resident Tess Routliffe is overcoming adversity one swim at a time
CALEDON, Ontario — For Tess Routliffe, overcoming adversity has been a major part of her life. Standing at 4-foot-4, the Canadian Paralympic swimmer has not let her small stature get in the way of her big dreams.
The New Zealand-born athlete is perhaps most famous for representing Canada at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, where she took home a silver medal in the women’s 200-metre individual medley and set a new Canadian record in the process.
A resident of Caledon and graduate of Mayfield Secondary School, Tess did not start her competitive swimming career until she was 14 years old. Two years later, at the age of 16, Tess gained international exposure when she won four gold medals and one silver medal at the Parapan American Games in Toronto.
The star athlete has always found solace in swimming. When she started her swimming journey, her main goals were staying healthy and maintaining her physique. Gradually, she fell in love with the sport. Swimming made her feel more confident, as she learned to embrace her own skin through the sport.
“[Swimming] was just so natural to me because I always loved the water as a child,” Tess commented in a past interview.
Growing up, Tess was a shy and quiet girl. She was born with a condition known as hypochondroplasia, which causes shortened limbs and results in short stature. Her physical disability made her feel self-conscious at school. In a lot of ways, she used swimming as a coping mechanism to overcome her doubts, fears and limitations.
For Tess, sports were a staple in the household. Growing up with two older sisters that both played sports contributed to Tess’s decision to pursue competitive swimming. Her sister, Erin, plays competitive tennis and previously attended University of Alabama on a tennis scholarship, while her other sister, Tara, who attended the University of Cumberlands in Kentucky on a volleyball scholarship.
Regarding her family influence, Tess said, “I saw both my older sisters get scholarships. That helped me to stay focused.”
She gives credit to her sisters for providing her with motivation, adding, “If I didn’t have my sisters, I probably wouldn’t have tried in the first place…Growing up in the backyard..getting used to sports and getting used to playing with other people was very helpful in my life.”
Coaching has been a critical factor in Tess’s success. Regarding her coaches, Tess said, “They make it fun…if it is fun, it makes the hard days easier.” Mike Thompson, her swim coach, agreed with the sentiment, adding, “When the chips are down and it’s time to race, she understands what needs to happen in order to win.. [Tess] is not afraid to race and she’s not afraid to put herself out there.”
Thompson recruited Routliffe back in 2015, shortly after becoming the first head coach of Swimming Canada’s Para-swimming Intensive Training Program in Quebec. His relationship with Tess quickly grew under his guidance and training, citing, “We worked really well together… She understands what I’m trying to get across and she responds to challenges really well.”
With Thompson’s help, Tess began training hard, spending fifteen hours a week, not just in the pool, but also at the gym. Eventually, she made a decision to move to Montreal to train under Thompson at the High Performance Centre- Quebec.
All the hard work began paying off for Tess as she swam her way through one medal after another. After racking up gold medals in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke events at the 2015 Parapan American Games, Tess came in second place in the 200m individual medley event in her Paralympic debut. She came in third place in the 50m butterfly event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Most recently, she competed in the 2019 IPC World Championships, where she came in second in the 100m breaststroke event and third in 200m individual medley and 4x100m freestyle relay events.
While Tess aspired to compete at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo for the last five years, she unfortunately suffered a spine injury while training in the gym in the months leading up to the event. To assist in the recovery process, she had to withdraw her name from the Tokyo 2020 Canadian Paralympic Team. Under a recent Instagram post, she wrote, “Though I did everything I could to be competition ready for the Paralympics, sometimes that isn’t enough,” adding “I am choosing to focus on my recovery and come back better and stronger next year.”
Given her fiercely competitive and tenacious nature, there is no doubt that she will come back better than ever.
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