Paralympic swimmers may be in the backwash of their Olympic counterparts in terms of times, but they're no longer in the shadows.
Valérie Grand'Maison of Montreal and Benoît Huot of Longueuil, Que., dominated their events as the Canadian Paralympic Committee named a 20-swimmer team for the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in qualifying races swum along with the CN Trials for the Olympic squad.
Sixty swimmers with disabilities participated.
Grand'Maison, a five-event world champion in 2006, is one of the world's top swimmers with a visual impairment and set multiple national and world records at the meet. She closed Sunday with a time of 27.91 seconds in the 50-metre freestyle, beating her previous national mark of 27.92, which had stood since 2002.
In the multidisability standings, Anne Polinario of Montreal ranked first because she was actually closer to the world record in her class.
"I wasn't expecting to do this on the sixth day of competition," said Grand'Maison, who broke one world record, two Canadian records, a Pan American record and had five personal-best times in six races.
"I race to surprise myself and I did that this week."
In the men's 50 freestyle, Huot was first in 25.32, followed by Donovan Tildesley of Vancouver and Brian Hill of Duncan, B.C.
"It was important for me to come here and swim fast," said Huot, who is headed to his third Paralympics. "This was the best possible visibility for us and the whole team is looking forward to a great Games. We are going to have a very dynamic team."
Nominated to the Paralympic team for the men were: Huot, Tildesley, Hill, Drew Christensen of New Westminster, B.C., Devin Gotell of Antigonish, N.S., and Joe Barker of London, Ont.
For the women: Grand'Maison, Polinario, Chelsey Gotell of Antigonish, N.S., Stephanie Dixon of Victoria, Kirby Cote of Winnipeg, Andrea Cole of London, Ont., Darda Sales of London, Ont., Brittany Gray of Barrie, Ont., Laura Jensen of Fort St. John, B.C., Jessica Tuomela of Waterloo, Ont., Brianna Nelson of Victoria, Jacqueline Rennebohm of Regina, Stephanie McDougall of Maple Ridge, B.C., and Katarina Roxon of Corner Brook.
"We're going to Beijing to win medals," said Craig McCord, the head coach of the Canadian Paralympic team. "We also needed to look forward to 2012 and 2016, and we've achieved that with nine new Paralympians on the team. That bodes well for us down the road. Four years ago, we only had two new swimmers."