Canada’s Aurélie Rivard Sets Para World Record in 200 Free

Aurélie Rivard . Photo Courtesy: Ian MacNicol/Swimming Canada

BERLIN – Aurélie Rivard of Swimming Canada’s High Performance Centre – Quebec lowered her world record twice in the women’s 200 freestyle in a golden performance Thursday at the sixth and final stop on the Para swimming World Series circuit.

In the morning preliminaries, Rivard broke the world mark initially clocking two minutes and 10.57 seconds. Then in the final she went a scorching 2:08.64 for the gold medal. Her world mark entering the competition was 2:10.98 set at this same venue last year.

“My goal coming into this meet was to beat the record,” said Rivard, in her third consecutive weekend of racing. “My start was a lot better and I think that’s where I gained the most time on that first length.”

Rivard, a triple Paralympic Games champion in Rio, admitted she was starting to feel the effects of a busy racing schedule.

“The training and racing was more and more difficult this week but we can see that it’s paying off. I hope I can keep that momentum going for the rest of the weekend.’”

Rivard is also in contention for the overall women’s title on the circuit.

“She is just phenomenal right now,’” said HPC-Quebec head coach Mike Thompson. “But we’ve seen her performances in the 100 and the 400 over the last two weeks and we knew that today she would be right up there with the same level of pacing and same effort.’”

Tess Routliffe, also of HPC-Quebec and the only other Canadian in Berlin, was fourth in the women’s 100 breaststroke.

Competition continues through to Sunday.

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