Third Gold for Fisher at 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships

On Day 4 of the IPC Swimming World Championships the New Zealand medal tally continues to advance. New Zealand are now sitting on 7 medals with the addition of yet another gold. At the halfway point in the competition New Zealand are the 7th placed nation on the medal table sitting just behind Australia. The table is being led by Ukraine who are dominating the Championship.

Once again the day belonged to Mary Fisher. Fisher qualified fastest for her Women’s 100m Freestyle S11 and swam a powerful race to pull away from the field and win in a Oceania record time of 1 minute 9.61 seconds.  Today’s gold medal takes her personal medal tally to date to 4 medals.

New Zealand’s youngest ever Paralympian Nikita Howarth was just outside of the medals in the Women’s 100m Backstroke S7.  She placed fourth, less than a second outside of securing her first world championship medal.

Howarth, had also been underway earlier in the day additionally contesting the heats of the SB8 100m Breaststroke. Daniel Sharp and Daniel Holt both swam in the heats but missed progressing to the finals in the S13 50m Freestyle.

Jon Shaw (Head Swim Performance Coach, Paralympics New Zealand) says, “This is likely to be one of the strongest performances we have seen from a NZ Para-Swimming team in World Championships history and we still have a number of events to come which will further showcase our talent.”

Live streaming and event replays available at: http://www.youtube.com/user/ParalympicSportTV