Swimming: Gold and world record for Pascoe

Sophie Pascoe of New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images

Paralympics New Zealand swimmer Sophie Pascoe blew away the opposition to win gold in a new world record time at the Pan Pacific para-swimming championships in Edmonton, Canada.

Pascoe, who arrived at the championships following altitude training in Arizona, showed the benefit of hard work to power away to win the 100m butterfly S10 in 1min 07.57sec, eclipsing her own world record by half a second.

Pascoe showed her strength from start to finish in the race. Turning at the 50m mark with a 1sec lead, she doubled the margin over the last lap to finish a full two seconds ahead of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games gold medallist Anna Eames (United States).

The result capped another action-packed day for New Zealand. Daniel Holt (Auckland) and Nikita Howarth (Waikato) added to the New Zealand haul of silver medals in the 400m freestyle S13 and 50m Butterfly S7 respectively, both in personal best times.

Howarth's result shows impressive potential for the future given the 12-year-old is contesting her first major international meet competing against senior athletes.

Daniel Sharp and Bryall McPherson, both of Auckland, rounded out the New Zealand medal winners for the day.

McPherson took the bronze in the 100m butterfly S8 classification. Sharp, in the fiercely contested 50m freestyle S13 classification clocked a personal best 24.90sec for another bronze.

- NZPA