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Anastasia Pagonis, 17, breaks own world record, wins U.S.’ first gold medal of Tokyo Paralympics

In her first race of the first major international meet of her career, 17-year-old swimmer Anastasia Pagonis etched her name in the history books, breaking her own world record and winning the United States’ first gold medal of the Tokyo Paralympics.

Pagonis swam a Katie Ledecky-esque freestyle race of her own, finishing the 400m freestyle S11 in a time of 4:54.49 – 10.85 seconds ahead of the rest of the field – on Thursday night. She initially broke the Paralympic record earlier in the day when she won her heat in 4:58.40 – 26.