The Isle of Wight's Zac Lacey has won a gold medal and four silvers for Team GB at the World Down Syndrome Swimming Championships.
Zac has been competing at the event in Albufeira, Portugal, after qualifying for Team GB along with 29 others, taking on seven individual events and three relay events over the week.
Zac, 22, lives in Ryde and attends HTP College in Newport, where he is studying to become a fitness instructor.
Zac trains with Seaclose Swimming Club under the guidance of the coaching team lead by Val Gard, he also helps to teach and coach with the swimming sessions of Isle of Wight Sporting Opportunities.
His specialist field is Butterfly, and on Day 1 after personal best performances in the 50 back and 100 free races, he swam the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay team, where they gained a silver medal behind Italy.
Day 2 saw Zac compete in the 50 fly event, where he was third fastest into the final, but missed out on a medal by 0.28 seconds.
Day 3 saw Zac make the 200 Individual Medley final and finish fifth, before joining up with his Team GB teammates for the 4x200m Freestyle Relay event, where he swam the second leg to help them win a silver medal.
Day 4 was 100m Butterfly, where Zac swam a World Record time in his heat of 1 minute 17.85 seconds, but saw this broken in the last heat by Portugal’s Perreira in a time of 1 minute 16.98 seconds. The two then faced off in the evening final, where Zac lead for 90 metres, but the Portuguese swimmer came through in the last 10 metres and set a new World Record time of 1 minute 13.95 seconds, meaning Zac won a silver medal in 1 minute 14.43 seconds. Zac then went on to complete the Backstroke leg of the 4x50 Medley relay and gained another silver medal for Team GB.
Having won his first ever Individual world medal, Zac somehow found enough energy of Day 5 to compete in the 100m Individual Medley and 200m Butterfly events. Zac qualified for both finals again, with the 200m Butterfly the first event in the evening session.
From the start of the race, Zac led the competition and at halfway was leading by nearly 10 metres in a time of 1 minute 19.00 seconds. He stretched the lead further over the remaining four lengths and finished five seconds ahead of the previous world champion in a time of 2 minutes 54.86 seconds to become world champion and take his first ever gold medal at world level.
He literally climbed out of the water, and just three minutes later was on the starting blocks of the 100 Individual Medley final - although tiredness excused his eighth place finish.
Zac’s week saw him achieve personal bests in all seven of his entries and 1 gold and 4 silver medals.
Team GB also took top team, with more than 50 medals.
Zac said:
"I was very excited to be going to Portugal and have worked really hard over the last year. These medals and to be World Champion is a dream come true.
"I would like to thank Seaclose swimming coaches for their help and my family for their support. I would also like to say that without the help of Isle of Wight Council, Wightlink and many others I could not do this. Thank you!"
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