HEATHER Frederiksen landed her first gold medal of the London 2012 Paralympic games when defending her 2008 women’s S8 100m Backstroke title with an emphatic performance on day six at the Aquatics Centre.

The world record holder had qualified fastest for the final by more than four seconds as she looked to add to her S8 400m Freestyle silver from last week, and the Leigh swimmer did it in style as she reversed the freestyle rankings by beating the USA’s Jessica Long into second place.

Russia’s Olesya Vladykina led the race out but Frederiksen began to assert her dominance at the half-way stage, turning first in an S8 50m Backstroke world record 37.05 seconds.

And the Briton powered clear down the back 50m, winning by a body length as she touched in 1minute 17 seconds from Long (1:18.67) and Vladykina (1:20.20).

“That race was absolutely everything to me,” said the 26-year-old.

“Yesterday I was really nervous coming in to it, I was nervous this morning and I was nervous again tonight. But I was determined that I was going to fight to win it and that’s what I did.

“I knew I had to go out strong and I had a funny feeling the girls were catching me down the last 25m and last 15m because the crowd were getting louder and louder.

“So I just had to keep pushing and get to that wall.”

Frederiksen, whose achievements are all the more impressive considering her battle with illness in the past 12 months, now has one final event in which to claim a third medal, the S8 100m Freestyle.

The 26-year-old City of Salford Swimming Club member is hoping to reach the final at 7.29pm on Thursday.