Newman-Baronius and Ellard add to Para-swimming Euro golds
British teenagers Olivia Newman-Baronius and William Ellard claimed their second gold medals on the final day of the Para-swimming European Open Championships in Madeira.
The pair, 17 and 18 respectively, both won their S14 100m butterfly finals for swimmers with intellectual impairments thanks to dominant displays.
It means GB finish the event, the last major competition before the Paris Paralympics, with 26 medals, including 13 golds.
Newman-Baronius, who won gold in the 200m individual medley and silver in the 200m freestyle, had equalled the butterfly world record of one minute 3.33 seconds, held by Russian Valeriia Shabalina, at the Aquatics GB Championships earlier this month.
On Saturday, Newman-Baronius started strongly against Shabalina, who is competing as a Neutral Paralympic Athlete, and was more than a second ahead by halfway and maintained her advantage to win in 1:03.83 with her rival clocking 1:06.47.
Ellard, who like Newman-Baronius, is set to make his Paralympic debut in Paris, was fastest in the world in the butterfly this year and showed his class to win in 55.72 – comfortably clear of Ukraine’s Dmytro Vanzenko (57.48)
It adds to the 200m freestyle gold, 100m backstroke silver and 200m medley bronze he had already captured earlier in the week.
There was also more medal success for the experienced duo of Maisie Summers-Newton and Ellie Challis.
Double Paralympic champion Summers-Newton finished third in the S6 50m butterfly, edging out Ireland’s Dearbhaile Brady by 0.01 seconds to end her campaign with two golds, a silver and a bronze.
Challis won her third medal with silver in the S3 100m freestyle, finishing behind Spain’s Marta Fernandez Infante.
And there was also a second bronze of the week for Eliza Humphrey in the S11 400m freestyle.
