The 39-year-old, who earned one silver and two bronze medals for the host nation at the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games, was able to touch home in a winning time of 56.36sec.

It saw her lower the 11-year-old record held by Sweden’s Sandra Erikson, who swam 53.36 to earn gold at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games.

However, with the S4 event not featuring on the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games swimming programme, Cunnington will try to qualify for the S5 category event at the 2016 Canadian Olympic & Para-swimming Trials in April.

“We’ve been setting goals but we haven’t known how far we can go,” Cunnington’s coach Mandi Smith told swimswan.com.

“The fact that she’s already at the level right now is really, really exciting for her.

“It’s been her dream to go to Rio for a long time.”

The swimmer, who also broke the national record in the 100m freestyle, was one of 13 Canadian swimmers to earn victories at the meet.

The most dominant of the team proved to be Nicolas-Guy Turbide who earned seven gold medals, including winning the S13 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly competitions.

Meanwhile Riley McLean, Jean-Michel Lavalliere and Nathan Stein delivered a hat-trick of titles in the 50m butterfly events, in their S4, S7 and S10 categories respectively.

In the women’s S7 50m butterfly swimmer Sarah Mehain also earned a victory, with her team-mates Morgan Bird and Samantha Ryan triumphing in the equivalent event for the S8 and S10 classes.

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