Medal Tally Continues to Climb for NZ at 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships

Cameron Leslie, Sophie Pascoe and Mary Fisher continued the outstanding performances of the New Zealand team on the third day at the 2013 IPC Swimming World Championships in Montreal.  With the NZ medal tally now at six along with one world record and two Oceania records broken in just three days, this is shaping up to be a spectacular championship for New Zealand Para-Swimmers.

Cameron Leslie was first underway for the New Zealand Team in the finals session. Leslie brought home the bronze medal in the Men’s 50m Backstroke S5 in a time of 43.78 seconds. It was a strong start to the competition for Leslie ahead of his favoured event of the 150m IM later in the week.

New Zealand’s youngest ever Paralympian Nikita Howarth, showed outstanding improvement with a 8th placing in the Women’s 50m Freestyle S7.

Once again Sophie Pascoe showed what a true champion she was in winning the Women’s 100m Breaststroke in an Oceania record time of 1 minute 17.53 seconds.  This result backed up Pascoe’s silver in the same event at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.  Harriet Lee of Great Britain improved on her London 2012 bronze in following Pascoe home for silver, as both women beat Ukranian Paralympic Champion Khrystyna Yurchenko who touched the wall for bronze.

The personal medal tally for Mary Fisher continued to rise in the Women’s 400m Freestyle S11. Fisher secured a comfortable silver medal to go with two golds already in the competition. She was led home by Daniela Schulte of Germany who took gold as Ukrainian Olga Iakibiuk collected bronze.

Jon Shaw (Head Swim Performance Coach, Paralympics New Zealand) says, “It was great to see two further swimmers in the pool today and enjoying this great meet.” He continues, “We are excited about our young talent such as Nikita and this is a great event to benchmark themselves on the international stage.”

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