Jessica Long wins 16th Paralympic Gold Medal

On Sep 3, 2021

There’s simply no stopping Jessica Long. The American Para swimmer stormed to her sixth medal at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in the Women’s 100m butterfly S8 final dominating the pool yesterday.

Long sent out a warning in qualification with the fastest time of 1:09.78s then clocked 1:09.87s in the final to claim her 16th Paralympic Games Gold Medal.

It never looked in doubt as Long sprang off the boards and went straight into the lead with a fizzing 0.51 reaction time, only Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) athlete Viktoriia Ishchiulova could stay close but wasn’t able to reel in the USA flyer.

Ishchiulova clocked 1:10.80s to claim Silver and Colombia’s Laura Gonzalez Rodriguez was third in 1:20.93s.

Long made her Games debut in Athens at 12 years old, she’s now 29 and the most decorated active Paralympian having claimed 29 medals across five Games.

Six of them have come here in Japan: Gold in the Women’s 200m individual medley SM8, the 4x100m medley relay and yesterday’s 100m butterfly S8, Silver in the 100m free S8 and the 100m breaststroke SB7 and Bronze in the 100m backstroke S8. (Agencies)