Rebecca Redfern
 Redfern at the Rio2016 Paralympics | |||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | Becky | ||||||||||||||||||
| National team | Great Britain | ||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
19 December 1999 Droitwich Spa, England | ||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Breaststroke | ||||||||||||||||||
| Classifications | S13, SB13, SM13 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Worcester Swimming Club | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coach | Mark Stowe | ||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Rebecca Redfern (born 19 December 1999) is a British visually impaired para-swimmer from Droitwich who competes in S13/SB13/SM13 disability categories. Rebecca holds British and European records in SB13 100m breaststroke.
Personal life
Rebecca is the daughter of Katharine and Steve Redfern, and has three brothers, Anthony, Matthew and Nathan, all of whom also swim competitively. Rebecca currently attends Sixth Form at Droitwich Spa High School where she is studying A Levels in Maths, Business, and Psychology.
When Rebecca was 7 she was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), and now has grossly impaired visual fields with no peripheral vision and poor frontal vision.
Rebecca is a member of Worcester Swimming Club and trains 16 hours per week in the pool plus 2 hours in the gym. She represents Worcester Swimming Club at club, county, regional and national level, as well as representing her country at international level.
Following her successes in 2016, Rebecca has been honoured by the local community having been invited to switch on the Droitwich Christmas Lights[1] She was presented with the Hereford & Worcester Sports Award for the Junior Female Sportsperson Of The Year,[2] followed by the Aspiring Talent Award at the West Midlands Sports Awards.[3]
Swimming career
Rebecca has been a competitive swimmer since the age of 9 but didn't enter the para-swimming world until 14 when she was spotted by the British Swimming Vision for Rio programme in September 2014.
On 3 May 2016 Rebecca made her international debut at the 2016 IPC Swimming European Championships in Funchal, Portugal, claiming a silver medal and narrowly missing out on gold to Elena Krawzow (Germany) by 0.02 seconds.[4]
Rebecca achieved the consideration time for the 2016 Rio Paralympics at the 2016 British Para-Swimming International Meet in Glasgow, UK where she set a new World Record of 1:16.86 in the process, beating the previous one set 14 years ago by Kirby Cote of Canada.[5]
She then made her Paralympic debut when she represented Great Britain at the 2016 Rio Paralympics where she swam a time of 1:13.81 which was over two seconds inside her own world record, although finished second behind Fotimakhon Amilova of Uzbekistan who set a new world record in 1:12.45.[6] Rebecca's time also claimed the Worcestershire county record as an able bodied swimmer, and the IPC European record.
References
- ↑ "Paralympic swimmer to switch on Christmas lights in Droitwich". Worcester News. Retrieved 2016-11-11.
- ↑ "Sports Partnership Herefordshire and Worcestershire - 2016 Award Winners". www.sportspartnershiphw.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-11-11.
- ↑ "West Midlands Community Sports Awards | An inspirational Awards ceremony recognising and celebrating the difference sport makes to community life across the region". www.westmidlandscommunitysportsawards.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-12-01.
- ↑ "Ryabova takes down 50m freestyle S10 world record.". 3 May 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
- ↑ Hudson, Elizabeth (24 April 2016). "Paralympic trials: Rebecca Redfern & Aaron Moores break world records". BBC. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
- ↑ "Rio rains medals on day four in the pool". British Swimming. Retrieved 2016-11-01.