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Lakeisha Patterson Wins Paralympics Gold, Breaks PB By 24 Seconds

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Lakeisha Patterson with her gold medal
Australian Paralympic Team
Lakeisha Patterson with her gold medal

Almost 24 seconds. That's how much swimmer Lakeisha Patterson just beat her personal best by. Incredible.

While only five of our individual event Olympic finalists managed to swim their best times of the year at the Olympics in August, Aussie swimmer Lakeisha Patterson has done the unthinkable.

Overnight Patterson won our first gold of the Rio Paralympic Games, notching a world record in the S8 400m freestyle. Patterson is just 17 years old, but blitzed the field to win the final in 4:40.33, a good few seconds in front of the silver medallist.

Her previous best time was 5:04:17. Yes, you read that right. That's 23.854 seconds quicker, which is what we call peaking when it really counts.

Patterson's nickname is "Lucky", but it was more skill than luck which won her Australia's first gold of the Games on Friday morning.

In Rio, Australia currently sits eighth on the medal tally with one gold, one silver and one bronze medal. Our first medal came in the Women's C4 3000m Individual Pursuit, with Susan Powell winning silver. We've also got a bronze in the Women's 100m T53, with Angela Ballard coming third in that event also on Friday morning (Australian time).

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