Fresh from her first GOLD medal in Tokyo last night, New Zealand’s most decorated Paralympian, Sophie Pascoe, has taken her Paralympic medal haul to a whole new level with a stunning 19 medals in total. She won another GOLD tonight in the Women’s 200m Individual Medley SM9, taking her Tokyo medals tally to 4 total and the total number of GOLD medals in her career to an exceptional 11 across her career. The medal tally for the New Zealand Paralympic Team now sits at 9 medals including?4 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze.
Pascoe dominated her favoured event and won in a time of 2:32.73. At the end though, she was just two 10ths of a second ahead of silver medallist Zsofia Konkoly (Hungary) on 2:33.00, after nearly being caught on the last leg. Pascoe was off the block very fast and pulled away to a dominant lead in the Butterfly, taking the next three turns in the lead position and pulling away through the Backstroke and Breaststroke. About halfway through the last leg, the Freestyle, the Hungarian began chasing her down and another few lengths might have done it. Nuria Soto Marques took the bronze in a time of 2:35.64. Pascoe’s latest medal came after collecting a GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE over the last few days of competition. Pascoe had already set the tone for the event earlier, with a dominant performance in the heats and the fastest qualifying time.
