12-Year-Old Sara Vargas Wins Second Gold of Parapan Ams in Record Fashion

LIMA 2019 PARAPAN AM GAMES

  • Villa Deportiva Nacional – Videna, Lima, Peru
  • Para-Swimming: August 25th – August 29th
  • Prelims 11 AM / Finals 8:30 PM (local time/US Central Time)
  • Official Website
  • Live results

Twelve-year-old Sara Vargas, the youngest athlete in attendance at the 2019 Parapan American Games, won her second gold medal of the meet (and third medal overall), Thursday in Lima.

Vargas, of Colombia, topped the women’s S6 100 back –the final event of the day– in 1:33.03, taking almost two seconds off the meet record. She was well over two seconds ahead of silver medalist Vianney Trejo Delgadillo, of Mexico, who was 1:35.85. Vargas’ first medal came in the S6 50 fly (40.48), in which she broke the meet record in prelims and finals.

Colombians Carlos Serrano and Laura Gonzalez Rodriguez also picked up wins on night five. Serrano took the men’s S7 50 fly in 30.05, breaking his own meet record for his third win of the meet. Rodriguez won the women’s S8 200 IM by five seconds, going 3:04.32.

Swimmers from Argentina also notched three wins on the day. Matias Andrade took gold in the men’s S6 100 backstroke, going 1:15.50; he won by over six seconds. Daniela Gimenez nabbed the nation’s second win of the day in women’s SM9 200 IM, going 2:41.54. Nadia Baez won the women’s S11 50 free in 34.51 for Argentina’s third win on Thursday.

Brazilian swimmers also continued their dominance. After racking up medal counts in the teens each prior day of competition, the nation had its best day yet, winning a whopping ten golds.

Among the winners was veteran Daniel Dias, who earned his fourth gold medal of the week. He won the men’s S5 50 fly in 36.31, 4.5 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, but over a second off his own meet record from 2015. His teammate Maria Gomes Santiago has also only won gold medals so far, earning her third victory in the S13 400 free Thursday (4:59.66).

Mexico’s Gustavo Sánchez Martinez also has only gold to his name this week, winning his fourth medal Thursday in the mixed class 50 fly (54.33). In the same event, Brazilian Gabriel dos Santos hit an S2 world record, taking bronze in 1:01.65.

Medal Table After Day 5:

Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 Brazil 36 31 18 85
2 Mexico 21 23 17 61
3 Colombia 14 10 13 37
4 United States 12 12 24 48
5 Argentina 7 13 14 34
6 Canada 5 5 7 17
7 Chile 5 1 0 6
8 Cuba 1 2 1 4
9 Costa Rica 0 1 0 1
9 Dominican Rep. 0 1 0 1
9 Puerto Rico 0 1 0 1
12 Venezuela 0 0 3 3
13 Peru 0 0 2 2

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About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

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