Paralympic Swimming World Championships 2010
Great Britain ended the International Paralympic Championships with great success. The team managed to gather a total number of 18 gold medals, with Daniel Pepper adding another medal on the final day of the swimming championships when he also won a title in the 100 metre breaststroke. The finals of the tournament were scheduled on the 20th of August. The closing ceremony took place on the 21st of August.
Apart from the 100 metre breaststroke, Pepper also won a gold medal in the 200 metre freestyle. Although he was lagging behind half way through the race, he held off all the other swimmers in the final 50 metres and won the meet. He finished the race in 2 minutes and 2.18 seconds.
He said he was not expecting this victory. He just put his head down through the water and emerged out with a gold medal.
Throughout the week in which the championships continued, Great Britain managed to gather a large number of gold medals. The swimmers gave brilliant performances with Eleanor Simmonds winning four gold medals, Sascha Kindred also with gold for a win in the 200 metre individual medley.
On the last day of the contest in Eindhoven, Netherlands, a total of nine medallists from the Great Britain made their country proud of their performances. Pepper along with the paralympic champion Kindred and the paralympian James Crisp were the ones to make most of the victories on the finals of the IPC Swimming Championships. However, Pepper repeatedly said that the gold medal that he won was not expected by him. Further on, the athlete said that he concentrated in the game and that is what he got rewarded for. He also told the correspondents that he was more than pleased with the way his team performed at the finals and with the way he met his races.
The paralympic champion Kindred took away the silver medal in the 50 metre butterfly after winning in the title in the 200 metre individual medley and setting a new European record by finishing the race in 32.26 seconds.
The world champion and paralympian Crisp, managed to win the silver medal in the men’s 100 metre breaststroke, giving a very strong performance despite of his return from a break due to an injury. He finished the race in 1 minute and 3.52 seconds.
As for the women’s event of the same race, Stephanie Millward also won a silver medal, finishing after the athlete Natalie du Toit. She finished the race in a time of 1 minute and 10.31 seconds.
The British team of female swimmers that evening included Millward, Harriet Lee, Simmonds and Claire Cashmore. They won the silver medal in the 4 into 100 metre medley relay. The winner of this last event of the evening was the American team, while the British team finished the race in a time of 5 minutes and 0.93 seconds.
Matthew Walker and James Anderson finished second in the 50 metre butterfly and third in the 100 metre freestyle respectively. It was Matthew’s personal best of finishing the race in 32.00 seconds.
It is the first world championship that Natalie Massey participated in. She won a bronze medal in the 200 metre freestyle with a time of 2 minutes and 17.81 seconds. On the other hand, the 100 metre freestyle was finished in the third spot by Rhiannon Henry, winning the bronze. She managed to finish the race in a time of 1 minute and 1.13 seconds.
The National performance director of the event, John Atkinson, said at the end of the finals that this week has been quite lucky and pleasing for him. He further said that he was amazed at the team’s talent that was evident through the 12 individual gold medal victories.
For John this particular British was a pleasure to work with and to watch playing, he considers the team very professional and hard working.
The team is also very enthusiastic about the way they played in the championships and promised to perform better in the next championships.
Tags: