Draft:Danielle Kisser

Danielle Kisser is a Canadian paralympian swimmer, specialising in breaststroke swimming, and a dual-olympic medal winner, winning silver and bronze in 2018 for Team Canada in the Cairns 2018 Pan Pacific Para Swimming Championships.

Early life
Danielle Kisser was born with achondroplasia dwarfism, a hereditary condition in which the growth of long bones is restricted by ossification of cartilage, resulting in very short limbs and sometimes a face that is small in relation to the skull. However, this condition did not stop Danielle from pursuing her talents, and her family played a big part of her journey in influencing her love for sports.

Her mother had played and coached in several national football tournaments in Canada, and her father taught her to swim breaststroke as a young child.

Growing up Danielle was very involved in sports despite her condition. Before she reached the age of 11, she had played basketball, soccer, softball, and even did horseback riding.

As she got more involved with other sports, her brother's swim coach encouraged her to pursue swimming in 2008. She eventually joined the Delta Swim Club, and committed to improving, becoming very successful in her journey and also going on to pursue a career in Linguistics and Theology.

Injury
In October 2014 Danielle underwent a double-leg osteotomy. The surgery involved her tibia and fibula bones being broken, screws installed, and her ankles rotated to realign with her knees. She was in a wheelchair until January 2015, putting her out of contention for the 2015 Parapan American Games and the 2016 Paralympic Games. A member of the Parapan Am Games team in 2011 at age 14, her talents resurfaced in 2018 with two medals at the Pan Pacific Para Championships. Then in 2019 she competed at the world championships and headed to Tokyo in 2020 for her first Paralympics.

Awards and achievements

 * At the age of 14, Kisser captured a bronze medal in the 100-m breaststroke at the 2011 Guadalajara Parapan Am Games.


 * In 2013 she received the 2012/13 Fairplay Leadership Award from the Delta Sungod Swim Club in Canada.
 * At the 2013 IPC World Championships, Kisser finished fifth and seventh in the 100-m breaststroke and the 200-m individual medley.


 * In 2014, Kisser was a member of the Pan Pacific Para Swimming Championships team.


 * At the 2015 Can-Am open in Bismarck, USA, Kisser won gold in the women’s 4×100-m medley relay, and bronze in the 100-m backstroke and 100-m breaststroke.


 * To make her return to the national team after dealing with injuries the previous three years, Danielle Kisser finished fifth in the women’s multi-class 100-m breaststroke at the 2018 Canadian Swimming Trials.


 * At the 2019 Canadian Swimming Trials in Toronto, Kisser’s best performance came in the 100-m breaststroke multi-class final, where she missed the podium by one spot.


 * Kisser placed 6th in the 100-m breaststroke multi-class at the 2022 Bell Canadian Swimming Trials. Her performance qualified her for the 2022 World Para Swimming Championships and Commonwealth Games.


 * At the London 2019 World Para Swimming Championships, Kisser’s best performance came in the 100-m breaststroke SB6, where she finished ninth. She also competed in the 100-m backstroke S6 (10th).


 * At the 2018 Pan Pacific Para Swimming Championships, Kisser broke her own Canadian record and captured silver in the 100-m backstroke S6. She also captured bronze in the 50-m freestyle S6.


 * At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Kisser finished 10th in the women’s 100-m breaststroke SB6. Kisser also swam backstroke for the women’s 4×100-m medley team that was disqualified in the final.
 * During the Tokyo 202 Paralympics, Kisser also was part of a television feature called the Rising Phoenix, led my Mat Whitecross, documenting Kisser and 11 other patalympians in their olympic journies.
 * She made headlines in 2020 during the pandemic, as she documented on her YouTube channel how she built her own pool in her backyard so she could continue training . She was then named the inaugural winner of the “People’s Choice Award for Most Viral Moment of the Year” at the 2020 Canadian Sports Awards


 * At the Madeira 2022 World Para Swimming Championships, Kisser placed 7th in both the 200-m individual medley SM6 and the 100-m breaststroke SB6.


 * Kisser placed 4th in the 100-m breaststroke SB6 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
 * Danielle Kisser was featured in a Coldplay music video in August of 2022 in Coldplay's song "Biutyful".