Summers-Newton in dream world after second gold

Maisie Summers-Newton is living in a dream world after matching her idol Ellie Simmonds with a second Paralympic swimming gold medal at her maiden Games.

The 19-year-old had already broken the world record on the way to gold in her main event, the 200m individual medley SM6, before following it up with another title in the 100m breaststroke SB6.

With the pressure off, Summers-Newton held her nerve as the fast-finishing Liu Daomin tried to chase her down, with the teenager touching home in a new Paralympic record of 1:32.34.

That gold matches Simmonds’ record as a 13-year-old back in Beijing, with the now 26-year-old having to settle for fourth in this race.

And for Summers-Newton, this level of success in Tokyo has come as quite a shock.

She said: “I’d hoped for the first one in the IM but to get two, it’s just what dreams are made of isn’t it really. Just incredible – obviously I have no words.

“I don’t think this one has sunk in as much as the medley because I really, really wanted it so this one is just the icing on the cake definitely.

“I kept looking out the side of my goggles and just thinking ‘please don’t catch up to me!’ but when I saw how close I was to the wall I just gritted my teeth and tried to get there first and it obviously worked.

“Nerves were pretty high before the IM as I didn’t really know what to expect but after that I’ve just been on such a high.

“Sleep has been pretty difficult but I’ve tried to get as much as I can. Tonight I was just so excited and ready to race off the back of what happened in the medley. I just really wanted to enjoy it too because I had no pressure on me for these two so I think that definitely helped.”

Summers-Newton and Simmonds will go again in the 400m freestyle with a potential hat-trick of titles on the line for the former.

And hers was not the only ParalympicsGB gold of the night in the pool, as the 4x100m mixed freestyle relay S14 team dominated the race.

Reece Dunn, a gold medallist in the individual, led off the team with a lightning fast first leg before Bethany Firth and Jessica-Jane Applegate, silver and bronze medallists respectively, put Jordan Catchpole in great position.

Diving in behind only the Australians, who had put both of their male swimmers on the first two legs, Catchpole stormed into first place and carried that momentum to a gold and a new world record of 3:40.63.

Dunn said: “It was a team effort. The girls in the middle two legs did very well, I did my best at the front to give the girls some space so they didn’t get all the wash from the other teams.

“You share a moment with your friends that you train with, see all the time and live with in the Village. It makes it sweeter.”

In the women’s 100m breaststroke SB5, Grace Harvey took silver in a time of 1:42.22 behind Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Mereshko and was struggling to take in the enormity of her achievement.

She said: “I did not compute it at first, I was looking round at my name thinking is that me? But it means so much and there are not enough words to express how happy I am with my performance.

“I was not aware of where I was. I stuck to my own race plan and wanted to relax in that first 50 and see what I could bring it back with.”

Finally Paralympic debutant Zara Mullooly finished seventh in the women’s 100m freestyle S10 in a time of 1:01.71.