Paralympian Nikita Howarth stormed to a new world record in the pool overnight in Germany at the IDM German Open. Nikita swam a time of 1:18.65 in the Women’s S7 100m Butterfly beating the previous record of 1:20.14 previously held by American Mallory Weggemann since 2009.
Nikita is well known as New Zealand’s youngest ever Paralympian making her debut at the London 2012 Paralympic Games at the age of 13. Nikita is currently ranked first in the world in four events.
Nikita will be thrilled with her performance as she went into this competition following an intense training camp in Spain with the New Zealand Para-Swimming team.
Malcolm Humm (High Performance Director, Paralympics New Zealand) said, “”It was great to see Nikita set a new world record in this event. All the more outstanding considering she came into this competition without a taper as this was viewed more as competition training opportunity rather than an event Nikita was going to achieve a personal best performance at. This meet is a vital stepping stone in preparations for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and bodes well for medal hopes.“
Nikita is part of the New Zealand Paralympic team that current stands at 24 Para-Athletes across the sports of Para-Athletics, Para-Cycling, Para-Sailing and Para-Swimming. Paralympics New Zealand expects the team to be up to 30 Para-Athletes in total, with selections for up to one further Para-Sport and a possible second Para-Athletics announcement to follow within the next five weeks.
The IDM German Open is notorious for attracting some of the world’s best Para-Athletes. This year around 600 athletes from 40 countries will compete ahead of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. The meet continues until 12 June. Follow the action live at https://www.paralympic.org/swimming
To view Nikita’s race go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCGGeR4SEMU (starts 1:48.30)
