MEET
MAISIE
SUMMERS-
NEWTON
DOB
26th July 2002
FROM
Wollaston, UK
SPORT / EVENT
Swimming (Parasport)
SPORTING ACCOLADES
2 x Paralympic Champion, World Para Champion
Born and raised in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, Maisie Summers-Newton is a local hero, national star, and world record holder and is touted by many as the future of Paralympic sport despite still being in her teenage years. The epitome of an overnight success born out of a lifetime of hard work and dedication, Maisie cemented herself in history at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games where she became a double Paralympic Champion, delivering gold medals in both the 200m medley and the 100m breaststroke. For those that have been following Maisie’s journey, the Paralympics in Tokyo were not the start of her successes and they will certainly not be the last of them.
Competing in the S6 class; a class that includes swimmers with short stature or amputations of both arms or moderate co-ordination problems on one side of their body as Maisie was born with achondroplasia; a condition that affects how bones develop, Maisie was inspired to take up swimming after watching the London 2012 Paralympics. She never thought that just a few years later, she is already creating her own legacy in the sport.
Having broken the world record in the 100m breaststroke in May 2018 at just 15 years of age, Maisie went on to win the gold medal in the 200m medley at the Para Swimming European Championships later that year and was ultimately shortlisted for the prestigious BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award. In 2019, Maisie backed up that success with another gold medal in the 200IM at the World Para Swimming Championships in London in front of a home crowd, laying the foundations for what was ultimately a superb 2021. 2022 was equally as impressive as Maisie continued to break records whenever an opportunity presented itself, that included a Gold medal performance at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham that summer, another one added to the collection!
Alongside swimming, Maisie is pursuing a career in teaching and is currently enrolled on a teacher training course near her hometown of Wollaston. At such a young age Maisie is just getting started and we can’t wait to see where this young ladies’ abilities take her.