New Zealand Paralympian smashes World Record

Paralympian Kate Horan today showed she means business in the Para-Cycling world by breaking the Flying 200m World Record at the NZ Track National Championships in Cambridge this morning.

Kate is a well known name in the Paralympic sporting world as a former Paralympic athletics track star. Her best known performance includes winning a silver medal at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.

Her time of 13.551 seconds took 2 seconds of the previous record held since 2003 by British Para-Cyclist Zoe Marusiak.

This was an outstanding achievement considering Kate has only been competing in Para-Cycling since April 2013.  Kate won her first international Para-Cycling medal last year at the UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships.  A Silver in the Women’s C4 500m Time Trial.

Kate Horan said, “I am so thrilled to break the World Record today, it has made me think anything is possible.”  She continues, “My family where in the stands cheering me on and it was such a boost.  I also have the most amazing world class coaches around me that believe in me, which makes me believe in myself.  It is achievements like this that make all the training worthwhile and motivate me to continue to work hard on the road to Rio.”

Brendon Cameron (PNZ Para-Cycling Head Performance Coach) said, “Kate’s world record breaking performance today is a great mile stone for Kate who is making a great transition from another sport.”  He continues, “This bodes well as she pursues her Paralympic dream of not only representing New Zealand at her third Paralympic Games in Rio 2016, but to be also chasing a medal.”

Kate’s success today is an example of the continuing growth and success of the Paralympics New Zealand (PNZ) High Performance Programme and PNZ has aims to grow it even further with increased commercial investment.

Notes:

• Previous Record Holder: 15.736sec – Zoe Marusiak (Great Britain), Manchester Velodrome, 23/08/2003
• Event Name: Flying 200m
• PNZ Talent Identification Programme has identified 347 new athletes since the start of 2013, this is long way towards PNZ’s target of 1,000 new athletes by the end of 2016
• This target is key to building towards Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games and beyond.