St. Albert teen awarded 2025 national Paralympic male swimmer honour

Swimming Canada named a teenager from St. Albert, Reid Maxwell, as its para male athlete of the year.

A St. Albert swimmer has scored a national honour.

On Thursday, Swimming Canada named Reid Maxwell its male swimmer of the year for the Paralympic program.

In 2025, the 18-year-old took silver in the para 200-metre individual medley at the world championships. He also finished fourth in the 100-metre freestyle and 400-metre freestyle, and seventh in the 100-metre backstroke while setting five Canadian records at the event held in Singapore in September. He was also on the Canadian team that placed fifth in the mixed 4x50 free relay.

Maxwell, who lives in Montreal, was born without a lower right leg and with Prune Belly Syndrome, which is characterized by underdeveloped abdominal muscles. He has been swimming competitively since he was about five years old and has been competing internationally with the national team for the past two years.

In Edmonton, he swam with the Keyano Swim Club, whose coach Paul Birmingham said in a media release he “has no doubt” Maxwell will continue to strive on the international stage.

“His performance at worlds was fantastic,” Birmingham said. “It is always difficult for a swimmer to back up after a Paralympics and to reclaim that motivation to get back into what can be the grind of a new cycle.

“Part of the plan was to broaden his event profile so he wasn’t as reliant on freestyle. To see such a great 200 individual medley was fantastic and hopefully inspires him to spread his efforts across more than one discipline.”

Maxwell told CTV News Edmonton on Friday he “was kind of shocked” when Swimming Canada officials told him the news of the award.

“It’s been such a short time, and it feels like so much has happened -- and so much has happened,” he said. “It feels like it’s been forever, but it has only been a couple of years.”

His world championship success came a year after he represented Canada at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, where on his 17th birthday, he took silver in the 400-metre freestyle S8, which he calls his favourite event in which to compete. The medal made him the youngest Canadian swimmer to win a Paralympic swim medal since 2012

International events on Maxwell’s radar include next summer’s Pan Pacific Games in Los Angeles and the Canadian Swimming Trials in Montreal.

Maxwell told CTV News Edmonton he wants to keep swimming in different types of events.

“In the world, I swam in a bunch of events. In Paris, I swam in a bunch of events. So, I want to keep doing that,” he said.

“I want to keep just improving on all of my events, because I want to try and get on that podium more than just once. I don’t want to specialize in one event and get on the podium once. I want to keep chasing times, getting faster ...

“I do want that gold.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa