Para-swimmer Sophie Pascoe has become the most decorated New Zealand Paralympian of all time, winning gold in the women’s 100m butterfly S10 event in Rio.
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While the per capita medal tally for New Zealand was correct, unfortunately the Olympics gold medal tallies for some other countries including Fiji and Jamaica were incorrectly included in the Paralympics table.
Earlier, Leslie claimed a career hat-trick of golds after an emphatic win in the SM4 150m individual medley, adding to victories in the same event at the Beijing and London Games.
Leslie finished in a time of 2:23:12 minutes, breaking his own world record and beating the silver medal victor Zhipeng Jin from China by more than three seconds.
New Zealand athletes have picked up four gold, three silver, and two bronze medals so far – halfway to the target.
On a population basis, New Zealand’s 13 medals in total puts us ahead of tiny Cape Verde in second and the Netherlands in third place. She annihilated Yi Chen (China) and Oliwia Jablonska (Poland) by more than 4 and 5 seconds respectively.
The highlight was Pascoe’s third gold in Rio, in the women’s S10 100m butterfly.
He broke his own world record by more than 2sec, clocking 2min 23.17sec to head off Chinese runner-up Jin Zhipeng and Denmark’s Jonas Larsen. Leslie, Pascoe and Howarth all set the fastest times in heats putting the trio as favourites heading into their respective finals later this morning.
7 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze.
Howarth, who was born without hands, was the reigning world champion in the event but her strongest stroke is still to come.
Mary Fisher, who won gold in the SM11 200m individual medley last week, was sixth in the 50m freestyle final.
New Zealand’s youngest team member, 15-year-old Tupou Neiufi, made her Paralympic debut in the women’s 100m freestyle S9, finishing her heat seventh in 1:11.21, while 16-year-old Hamish McLean finished fifth in his heat in the men’s 200m individual medley SM6 in 2:59.81.
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Jacob Phillips ran his second final of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games finishing eighth in the Men’s 200m T35 final in a time of 29.10. “I’m filled with gratitude to everyone who invested in me from the start”, he said after the 100m final, according to New Zealand’s Stuff news agency.
