Athlete in residence Morgan Bird, by artist in residence Jason Skinner, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Tomorrow’s first athlete in residence is now a gold-medal winning swimmer having taken two top spots at the Para Pan Am Games in Toronto, Ontario.

Morgan Bird, who we first interviewed during the London 2012 Paralympics, broke Para Pan Am records in both the 400m freestyle S8 and the 50m freestyle S8.

In the 400m on Sunday, Morgan finished in a time of 5:19:33 to claim her first gold, then just 90 minutes later mopped up the 50m in 32:00.¹

The 21-year-old told broadcaster CBC: “I did not see that coming. It’s been a busy night for me. I followed both race plans well I think. I’m really happy with the results.”²

You can read all of Morgan’s writings as athlete in residence about her training and hard work that have lead to this point. And we extend our own, acceptably biased, congratulations to Morgan and her family and friends in Calgary, Alberta, on these accomplishments.

UPDATE: Morgan won silver in the 100m freestyle S8 on Thursday evening in a time of 1:10.53. This was an improvement on her earlier time of 1:11:15, the fastest amongst the two heats and a games record time until it fell to gold medalist Mallory Weggemann of the United States.