Two Hungarian Swimming Golds at the Tokyo Paralympics

Zsófia Konkoly and Bianka Pap won gold medals in the 100m butterfly and 100m backstroke events respectively at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this Thursday.

Zsófia Konkoly, who competed in the S9 category, set a new European record in the preliminaries with a time of 1:07.05 and qualified for the final in first place. There, New Zealand's Sophie Pascoe was the fastest in the first fifty metres, turning into the second half of the distance with a lead of more than a body length. Konkoly turned in second place and gradually closed on the tiring Pascoe whom she overtook at the end to win the event with a new Paralympic record of 1:06.55. This was the fifth gold medal for the Hungarian team at the Tokyo Paralympics.

Konkoly, 19, won the silver medal in the 200m medley on Wednesday, and in the first week of the Paralympics, she won the silver medal in the 400 freestyle.

Konkoly's victory was followed by Bianka Pap's final. She came first in the 100m backstroke in the S10 category and won the sixth gold medal of the Hungarian delegation at these Paralympics. She swam the best time in the morning preliminaries (1:09.71) and was the fastest in the evening final as well. She led the field throughout the race, winning in 1:06.70, more than two seconds ahead of second place Aurélie Rivard of Canada.

The 21-year-old swimmer had won silver in the 400m freestyle the day before. The Hungarian delegation now has 13 medals at the Paralympics.