Kyle McMahon knew he was longshot to make Canada's Paralympic swim team.
The standards were steep and he fell short of meeting or beating the International Paralympic Committee qualifying times at the Canadian team trials, which wrapped up Sunday in Toronto.
That means he won't be going to Rio this summer, but the 25-year-old from Burns Lake did not leave his final swim meet empty-handed. He finished off a 16-year career in the pool with a bronze medal in the 50 metre butterfly, after posting a personal-best time a few days earlier in the 50 m freestyle.
"The bronze medal in the 50 fly was a nice way to wrap up a career as a competitive swimmer," said McMahon, from his home in Surrey. "The standards were a little out of my reach, but I'd say I performed pretty well. I got a best time (35.61 seconds) in the 50 freestyle."
McMahon fed off the energy of racing at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, where big crowds gathered to watch Canada's best swimmers compete for Olympic and Paralympic team berths.
"I wish I'd got more opportunities to swim in that type of atmosphere," said McMahon, 25, a former Prince George Barracuda Swim Club member, who now trains with the Surrey Knights. "It was pretty cool seeing the kids make the teams."
McMahon suffered a brain injury in a car accident when he was four and started swimming at age 9 to help him gain mobility.
"Swimming has given me some pretty good memories, lots of friends and some pretty good upper-body strength," he said.
McMahon competed in three consecutive Paralympic trials and won medals in all three. In 2012, on his 21st birthday, he was a gold medalist and set a Canadian record in the 50m butterfly. In 2008 he won bronze in the 100 breaststroke.
He plans to keep training with the Knights for the remaining three months of the season before he makes his exit from the competitive pool. He'll return to Kwantlen Polytechnic University this summer to resume his studies in the information technology degree program and said he wants to spend more of his free time as a recreational bike racer, a sport he took up competitively while he was living in Prince George.
Twenty-two swimmers from Canada were named to the Paralympic team to compete in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 7-18.
