First Paralympic medal a 'surreal' experience, says St. Albert's Reid Maxwell

Canada's Reid Maxwell, left, Italy's Alberto Amodeo, centre, and Andrei Nikolaev of the NPA team pose with their silver, gold and bronze medal after the men's 400 m. freestyle S8 at the 2024 Paralympics, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, in Paris, France. (Aurelien Morissard / Associated Press)

Competing in the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris and preparing to win a silver medal made for a memorable 17th birthday for Reid Maxwell.

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On the day – Monday – the teen from St. Albert, Alta., participated in a team medley relay and had a small celebration with his teammates.

In two days, he was scheduled to compete in his best event and the event he was most likely to make it to the podium for: the 400-metre freestyle.

Maxwell was born without a lower right leg and with Prune Belly Syndrome. He competes in the S8 para-swimming class.

"I was just really focused going into it," he told CTV News Edmonton in a Thursday interview.

He had a music playlist ready. He felt confident about having beat his previous personal best of 4:28 by three seconds in the prelims. And he was feeding off the energy in the village and crowd when it came time to race.

"I was very amped up just because the crowd there is insane," he recalled.

The athletes who would prove to be his fiercest competition swam two lanes to each his left and right: Italy's Alberto Amodeo and Russian-born Andrei Nikolaev, who was competing for the Neutral Paralympic Athletes team.

"The race itself, it was hard. I went out harder," Maxwell said.

But he felt strong throughout, even as the final leg of the race turned into a "fight."

"That last 100 (metres), I was watching (Amodeo and Nikolaev) the whole time. Last 50, I was really pushing to try and catch (Amodeo), but I couldn't quite get there."

Maxwell didn't know it immediately upon finishing, but he had come in six-tenths of a second behind Amodeo and beat Nikolaev by one-tenth of a second, also beating his prelim time with 4:23:90.

"I looked up at the board and kind of saw it – I was very dizzy," Maxwell told CTV News of finishing the race and seeing the results. "I just don't really have words for it. I was in shock."

He felt much the same on Thursday.

"(I'm) still a little bit dazed. It's pretty surreal, but I feel good. I'm happy," he said.

"It was massive (personal best), I felt strong all the way through, and I can't complain about the result."

The silver made Maxwell the youngest Canadian swimmer to win a Paralympic swim medal since Aurelie Rivard earned silver in 2012 at 16.

"He had to make an eight-second best time in the preliminary to get into that position in the final, and then took two more seconds off his personal best in the final to complete that silver medal," emphasized Chris Nelson, general manager of the Keyano Swim Club where Maxwell practices in Edmonton.

"He exceeded anything he'd ever done by so much to get to where he did today. So really an exceptional performance."

Maxwell said he planned to properly celebrate the medal when he returned home in order to stay focused on his next events.

He'll race in the 100-metre freestyle and 100-metre butterfly at 3:30 a.m. and 2 a.m. MT on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

With a couple days of recovery and another good preliminary performance in each, the teen said he's looking forward to both races.

"I know that he'll be ready," Nelson said.

Overall, Maxwell said his first Paralympic experience has been "everything and more" than he wanted.

"There's so much support for and passion here," he told CTV News Edmonton.

"The air is kind of electric."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa