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The start of something extraordinary

#GC2018 DAY 3 WRAP - PASCOE WINS GOLD

Sophie Pascoe has capped off the night at the pool with a gold medal, winning the women’s SM10 200m individual medley in 2:27.26.

Pascoe led at every turn and finished strong to win by just over four seconds to defend the title she’d won in Glasgow.

Canadian Aurelie Rivard (2:31.79) out touched Australian Katherine Downie (2:31.81) at the end for the silver medal.

Visibly exhausted after the race Pascoe took a while to recover and returned after the medal ceremony to talk to media.

"It was a tough race and obviously the body was responding afterwards. That's bound to happen if you give everything and your body is full of lactic acid,” says Pascoe.

"That's what happens when you have very high expectations of yourself and you want to be able to back these up.”

Pascoe will take tomorrow to recover and be back competing on Monday in the women’s SB9 100m breaststroke.

Clareburt finished 7th in the final of the men’s 200m butterfly in 1:58.51s.

The Wellingtonian was swimming out of lane 7 alongside two-time defending champion Chad le Clos of South Africa who shot out to an early lead.

“He (le Clos) went out really fast and maybe that distracted me a bit but I’m happy with another solid swim, and to be in the final against these world class swimmers is really special,” says Clareburt.

Le Clos won the gold in 1:54.00 with Australian David Morgan picking up the silver (1.56.36) and Scotsman Duncan Scott the bronze (1:56.60).


That past 24 hours has been a whirl wind for Clareburt.

“My social media has been going crazy, I’ve had to turn off my notifications just to get some sleep.”

Earlier in the day Clareburt swam a PB time of 1:58.32 to smash his previous best of 2:00.24 set at the 2017 Youth Commonwealth Games in the Bahamas.

Jesse Reynolds and Celyn Edwards went head-to-head in the men’s SB8 100m breaststroke final.

Reynolds turned in 4th place trying to hunt down Blake Cochrane and closed in fast on the Australian but it wasn’t enough, finishing in 1:21.65.

“Just under a 5sec PB today, I’m really happy with that race,” says Reynolds.

Celyn Edwards finished in 6th place with a time of 1:25.63s.

In semi-finals action New Zealand men’s 100m freestyle record holder Daniel Hunter broke his own national record with a new personal best time of 49.11s

The time was enough to see Hunter sneak into the final in 8th place.

Matt Stanley (49.61) and Sam Perry (49.83) finished in 11th and 14th place overall.

Perry and Hunter will both line up in the heats of the men’s 50m freestyle on Monday.

Helena Gasson finished 11th overall in the women’s 50m butterfly with a time of 27.19s.

Australian duo of Madeline Groves and Cate Campbell lead all finalists with only 0.02s separating the two.