Bunbury Bullet Alex Saffy and Olympian Brianna Throssell claim medals at World Swimming Championships

West Australian Alex Saffy has secured a bronze medal in the Para World Swimming Championships in Portugal.

Swimming in the S10 category in the 100m butterfly final, Saffy took home his first international medal at his first international meeting with a time of 58.20.

A Wally Foreman Scholarship holder, the West Australian Institute of Sport swimmer qualified for the Tokyo Paralympics but couldn’t be selected as he hadn’t been internationally classified.

Saffy, 16, has dyskinetic cerebral palsy and used to swim able bodied, but as the symptoms progressed he was regularly disqualified and encouraged to take up Para Swimming.

Now the Bunbury Bullet has stamped his class on the world stage, he’s eyeing next month’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

“That was a good swim. I’m stoked with that,” Saffy said.

“Just to be on this team was a big achievement for me, to go home with a bronze medal is pretty amazing.

“It is exciting. The S10 100m fly is probably the most exciting event on the program, the depth in it at the moment is pretty amazing.”

WA’s Brianna Throssell added a gold medal to her collection as part of the winning 4 x 100m freestyle relay team at the world championships in Budapest.

Throssell helped the Australian team to qualify for the final, before Mollie O’Callaghan, Madi Wilson, Meg Harris and Shayna Jack took the four spots and maintained this country’s dominance in the event, winning the last race of the day with the fifth fastest time in history, 3min 30.95 seconds.

Throssell, who is currently based in Queensland, finished sixth in the 100m butterfly final.