New Zealand Paralympian smashes World Record again

Paralympian Kate Horan today showed she means business in the Para-Cycling world by once again breaking the Flying 200m World Record at the NZ Track National Championships in Cambridge this evening.
 
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 13.198 seconds took 0.353 seconds off the previous record set by Kate last year at the NZ Track National Championships.
 
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 in 2014 at the UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships.  A Silver in the Women’s C4 500m Time Trial. Backed up by another silver medal in the same event at the 2015 UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships.


Kate Horan. Photo © Dianne Manson

Kate Horan said, “I was thrilled to get another opportunity to contest the world record, especially as there is a British rider that is currently very close to the current time. We just wanted to go out and set an even better bench mark tonight. The crowd support at the Avantidrome was amazing, particular to have my cousin here and see me race for the first time meant a lot.” She continues, “I also have the most amazing world class coaches and great Para-Cycling team mates around me. Their belief and encouragement drives me on.  I just want to work hard to get faster on the road to Rio.”
 
Jono Hailstone (PNZ Para-Cycling Head Performance Coach) said, “"It was great to see Kate set a new world record of 13.198 sec for the flying 200, shaving 0.353 sec off the time she set 12 months ago. It's particularly satisfying to see that, despite a change of focus to the Individual Pursuit event in the build up to the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Kate has still improved her fast twitch and short term power. This bodes will and will help her maintain her 2nd placed world ranking in the 500m TT event leading into the UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championships in 5 weeks time."
 
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.