ATHENS, Greece, September 27. GREAT Britain continues to lead the overall medal count with 42 through day seven of the Athens Paralympics.
And possibly inspired by the bronze medal won by Trischa Zorn, the USA has come to the fore in gold medals. They have 14, led by the astounding 5-for-5 performance of Erin Popovich, who won the 50 butterfly this evening.
The 100 backstroke was a particularly fruitful event for the Americans, producing three golds from Jarrett Perry, Justin Zook and Mikhaila Rutherford.
SWIMMING
MEDAL COUNT
TEAM USA
GOLD 14
SILVER 3
BRONZE 12
Total — 29
OVERALL STANDINGS
Great Britain 42
China 31
Spain 30
Canada 29
USA 29
GOLD MEDAL STANDINGS
USA 14
Great Britain 13
China 13
Spain 11
Canada 11
Forty year-old Trischa Zorn finished third in the S12 Women’s 100m Backstroke on Day 7 to earn her first medal of the Athens Games, and her 55th career Paralympic Games medal. Zorn holds the distinction of being the most decorated Paralympian of all time. To put Zorn’s career in perspective, she has won 13 more medals than the leading country through 7 days of this year’s event.
After finishing fourth in the preliminaries of the S7 Women’s 50m Butterfly this morning, Erin Popovich led the final from start to finish to earn her fifth gold medal of these Games in world record time of 37.37. Popovich has one more individual event in these Games, the 50m Freestyle, which will be contested tomorrow on Day 8.
Jarrett Perry led off a dominant showing by Team USA in the 100m Backstroke tonight winning the S9 Men’s event in an American and PanAmerican Record time of 1:05.35. Teammate Justin Zook followed two events later with another American and PanAmerican Record finish (1:04.22), to win the Men’s S10 race.
Finally, in the Women’s S10 event, Mikhaila Rutherford won her second Gold medal of these games in world record time (1:12.25), taking almost 2.5 seconds off of her own previous world mark.