Sophie Pascoe
Sophie Pascoe was born on the 8 January 1993 in Christchurch. Her parents are Jo and Garry Pascoe and she has an older sister named Rebecca. Sophie has a total of 24 gold medals, 10 silver medals and 6 bronze medals from all of the competitions that she has competed at which makes her New Zealand's most successful paralympian.
When Sophie was 2 years old, her father accidently ran over her legs while reversing on a lawnmower and she had to get her left leg amputated below the knee and she had a big scar on the back of her right leg.
Sophie started swimming when she was 7 years old and she is coached by Roly Crichton who was also a para swimmer.
At the 2008 Summer Paralympics, Sophie won medals in the 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly and the 200m individual medley. Sophie shared a gold medal with Shireen Sapiro from South Africa in the 100m backstroke race.
After the 2008 Paralympics, Sophie was voted New Zealand’s favourite paralympian in a competition run by Mitsubishi Motors. As a prize, she won a Mitsubishi VRX Outlander. Sophie was made a member of the New Zealand order of merit in 2009 for her services to swimming. In February 2012, Sophie became the first winner of the Disabled Sportsperson of the year in the 2011 Halberg Awards.
At the 2012 Paralympics, Sophie competed in six events. The four that she competed in at the 2008 Paralympics and the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle races.
In March 2013, Pascoe broke her own world record for the 50m butterfly at the New Zealand Swimming Championships in Auckland, setting a time of 29.21 seconds.
This year, at the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Sophie Pascoe won two gold medals, one in the 200m individual medley and one in the 100m breaststroke race.
If you decided to write a report about the Commonwealth Games, what would you write it about?
