Teen Bags Four Medals

Christchurch 15-year-old Sophie Pascoe – the youngest participant at the Beijing Paralympics – has won four medals: golds in the 200m individual medley, in the 1m breaststroke and 100m backstroke and a silver medal in the 100m butterfly swim. Pascoe dedicated one of the golds to her late grandfather. “My grandfather passed away four years ago and I said to him, ‘I will go to Beijing and win a gold medal for you.’ I gave it my best and I got him the gold,” she said. Pascoe lost a lower leg in a lawnmowing accident when she was two. Teammate Wellington lawyer and cyclist Paula Tesoriero, 33, won a gold medal in the Women’s 500m Time Trial setting a new world record with a time of 43.281 seconds, and a second medal, a bronze, in the individual pursuit. “I feel fantastic. Absolutely fantastic,” Tesoriero said after her 500m win. “The race went exactly to plan. It was a bit tight toward the end, but I finished around half a second between gold and silver.”