Mereshko’s 2 world records powers Ukraine to medal lead on day 4 of IPC Worlds

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  • Full day 3 prelims video (link will be added when available)

See Also: Decoding the S1-S14 Classification System.

Yelyzaveta Mereshko broke the same world record twice in one day and was one of six individual gold medalists for the Ukraine, which now leads the medal table.

Mereshko took home her third medal of the week and her second gold, going 34.14 to win the S6 50 freestyle. She was 34.45 to set the world record in prelims, wiping off the world mark of 34.77 set by Mirjam de Koning-Peper of the Netherlands at the 2012 Paralympic Games.

The Ukraine has been fantastic so far, and won 6 gold medals on day 4 to overtake Russia as the top nation of these championships so far.

The first Ukranian winner tonight was Oleksandr Mashchenko, who went 2:29.62 to win the men’s 200 IM SM11, for athletes with visual impairments. That’s his first medal of the meet after narrow 4th- and 5th-place finishes earlier on.

A few events later, Yevheniy Bohodayko took his second gold of the meet with a 2:34.46 meet record win in the 200 IM SM7.

After Mereshko’s 50 free win, Ukranians won back-to-back-to-back races near the end of the meet. First, Hennadii Boiko took the men’s 50 back S1 in 1:07.55, a new meet record and his second win. Then Dmytro Vynohradets won another sprint, going 44.16 to take the men’s 50 free S3. That’s his fourth medal so far and his third gold.

Finally, Oleksii Fedyna went 1:05.25 to win the men’s 100 breast SB12, yet another meet record and his first gold medal of the meet so far.

Mereshko’s dual records weren’t the only world marks to fall, either. Her prelims swim was one of two records to fall in heats, with the Netherlands’ Summer Mortimer taking the other. Mortimer was 1:05.86 in the women’s 100 back S10. She would go on to win gold, but miss her world record by two tenths in the final.

World records fell in 3 of the first 4 races to open finals, as well. American Rebecca Meyers started that off with a 4:21.66 in the 400 free S13. That’s the second world record of the meet so far for the 20-year-old Meyers.

Russia’s Denis Tarasov went 55.84 in the next race to break a world record in the men’s 100 free S8, and Australian Maddison Elliott broke the 100 free S8 record for women in the very next event, going 1:04.71.

Here’s a quick look at the medals table through day 4, which leaves Ukraine and Russia tied with 16 golds, but Ukraine leading in total medals:

1 Ukraine Ukraine 16 15 8 39
2 Russian Federation Russian Fed. 16 13 7 36
3 United States of America United States 9 5 5 19
4 Australia Australia 6 5 7 18
5 Brazil Brazil 6 4 0 10
6 New Zealand New Zealand 5 4 2 11
7 Netherlands Netherlands 5 2 2 9
8 Belarus Belarus 4 0 0 4
9 People's Republic of China China 3 5 7 15
10 Spain Spain 2 3 7 12
11 Germany Germany 2 3 1 6
12 Norway Norway 2 1 2 5
13 Republic of Korea Korea 2 1 0 3
14 Mexico Mexico 2 0 4 6
15 Great Britain Great Britain 1 10 7 18
16 Canada Canada 1 3 3 7
17 Italy Italy 1 2 2 5
18 Colombia Colombia 1 1 0 2
19 South Africa South Africa 1 0 1 2
20 Japan Japan 0 2 1 3
21 France France 0 1 2 3
22 Azerbaijan Azerbaijan 0 1 1 2
  Sweden Sweden 0 1 1 2
24 Czech Republic Czech Republic 0 1 0 1
  Iceland Iceland 0 1 0 1
  Israel Israel 0 1 0 1
  Vietnam Vietnam 0 1 0 1
28 Kazakhstan Kazakhstan 0 0 3 3
  Poland Poland 0 0 3 3
30 Greece Greece 0 0 2 2
  Hungary Hungary 0 0 2 2
32 Austria Austria 0 0 1 1
  Ireland Ireland 0 0 1 1
  Turkey Turkey 0 0 1 1
  Uzbekistan Uzbekistan 0 0 1 1

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About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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