Pascoe claims gold for Roly

07 Sep 2012
Pascoe claims gold for Roly

Sophie Pascoe clawed one back over arch rival Summer Ashley Mortimer of Canada tonight, leveling up the ledger at 2 Golds a piece, when the 19 year old Kiwi took out the S10 100 m freestyle final at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

From the starters gun to the wall, Pascoe’s determination was evident to everyone watching, clocking in at a new Paralympic record time of 1:00.89

After setting the record in the heat this morning, the former Lincoln High School student showed every ounce of grit and determination she could muster, emerging from the pool victorious, yet exhausted from the gruelling toe to toe brawl.

“It was just head down and suck it up on the way back; I just really wanted that gold, that’s why there was tears at the end."

“It hurt a lot in the last 15 but I wanted it so bad and it showed what you want, you get.”

Grabbing the gold brought a sigh of relief to Pascoe and coach Roly Crichton knowing this event has brought about the biggest amount of improvement since her debut games four years ago.

“This race meant a lot to me and Roly, we’ve worked for two years on this, the 100 freestyle, we were fifth in Beijing and to come out with a gold here four years later, it’s a great feeling."

Mortimer was forced to settle for bronze, nearly three quarters of a second behind Pascoe, with French woman Elodie Lorandi slipping into silver.

Although delighted with the result, ever the professional, Pascoe even took time to point out the parts she wants to work on for next time.

“I’m pretty gutted I didn’t do the sub one minute, I would have loved to do that here but we’ll save that for another day, and tonight was just about going out there and beating those two girls. We are friends outside of the pool but we’re rivals in it.”

Pascoe gave Crichton a high five following her opening gold medal, but admitted, “it’s definitely going to be a hug it out moment, he’s going to be really stoked, this is really his race, he’s worked the crunch for this race, for me to get this gold, I can’t thank him enough for what he’s done and I just swam it for him.”

After qualifying 5th fastest for tonight's S7 400 m freestyle Auckland’s Rebecca Dubber finished 5th in the final which was won by Aussie Jackly Reeney in a world record time of 4:59.02, claiming her 7th gold medal of the London Games.

And Cameron Leslie added an Oceania record to his list of records in the S5 50 m backstroke final in 42:40 capping off a successful games for the Northlander.

- Paralympics New Zealand

ENDS

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