Hollywood dolphin inspired amputee to become Paralympian swimmer

Britain’s Ellie Challis took up the sport after watching movie about bottlenose Winter, who learns to swim again with a prosthetic tail

A British Paralympian with no hands or feet was inspired to swim by a dolphin with a prosthetic tail
Ellie Challis, who will be competing for Great Britain in the Paralympics in Paris later this week, said seeing a film called Dolphin Tale as a child had made her think she could have a career in swimming.
She had all four limbs amputated after contracting meningitis as a baby, and received her first set of prosthetic legs at the age of three before learning to swim five years later.
Although she had started playing football and also taken an interest in running, it was when she saw the 2011 film as a child that she felt inspired to properly commit to a sport.
The film is based on the true story of a three-month-old bottlenose dolphin called Winter, who learns to swim again after losing her tail in a crab trap. It spawned Dolphin Tale 2, a sequel, in 2014.
“Winter lost her tail and had to learn how to swim all over again. I saw the film and then I really wanted to get into swimming,” said Ms Challis.
She previously told the i newspaper: “I was really late learning to swim compared to all my siblings, but we knew how important it was. It took a few years and kind of just went from there. I started at a club, then started racing and really enjoyed it.”
Ms Challis, now 20, later visited Winter, who received her name after being found on a bitterly cold December morning, at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
The dolphin died in November 2021 because of an “intestinal abnormality”, the aquarium said.
Having decided to concentrate her efforts on swimming, Ms Challis was just 13 when she broke her first British record. She then set a new world record in the same SB2 50-metre breaststroke event two years later.
“Whatever happened, I was going to enjoy it. I didn’t really expect too much – I was mainly looking at Paris as I would be older and more experienced. To come away with a silver medal… well, I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
By 2021, at the World Championships in Madeira, she had won her first world title in the SB2 50m breaststroke as well as three silver medals in the S3 50-metre freestyle, 100-metre freestyle and 50-metre backstroke.
Last year, she won another five medals in the Manchester World Championships and has kept her SB2 50-metre breaststroke title.
Ms Challis is the only British swimmer in Paris who will compete in a classification lower than S5, which means moderate disability, with the classification of S1 being the most severe disability.