Dutch swimmer Summer Mortimer is no stranger to setting World Records. She’s a four-time Paralympic medalist, including golds in the 50 free and 100 back in 2012, and is one of the best S10 swimmers in the world, and entered this week’s IPC World Championships in Glasgow with three World Records.
See Mortimer’s swim above, courtesy the International Paralympic Committee.
All of those accomplishments, however, have been done as a Canadian. In the last year, Mortimer decided to change her sporting nationality to the Netherlands, and that paid off both for her new home country and herself on Thursday morning in heat 2 of the women’s S10 100 back.
There, Mortimer swam a 1:05.86 to break the World Record in the event. The old record also belonged to her, but from her Canadian days in 2012 at the Paralympic Games, where she swam 1:05.90.
This is a nice bounceback for Mortimer after she finished just 4th in the 50 free earlier in the meet, which included losing her Canadian Record to Aurelie Rivard twice.
Mortimer’s was one of two World Records broken in the Thursday preliminary session. Yelyzaveta Mereshko from the powerhouse Ukrainian program swam a 34.45 in the women’s S6 50 free to break the World Record done by Mirjam de Koning-Peper, who is legendary for winning a Paralympic medal at the 2012 Paralympic Games at 43-years old.
Mereshko’s record-breaking swim is below: