RUBBING shoulders with Paralympic heroes proved no distraction for youngster Lauren Booth as she smashed a world record at the Newport International Paracycling Cup event last weekend.

The 12-year-old, from Chippenham, highlighted her credentials as a potential Paralympian at the Tokyo Games in 2020 by winning the youth omnium at the event, which featured some of Britain’s most famous paracycling names.

Booth, who pedals with the Welsh Disability Training Squad at the same venue each week, competed in three disciplines – two kilometre pursuit, flying 200m and 500m time trial – as part of the omnium discipline.

And the youngster, who suffers with cerebral palsy after contracting meningitis aged six weeks, lowered the women’s C4 category flying 200m world best time – which had stood for more than ten years – by more than half a second to 15.129 seconds.

Abbeyfield School pupil Booth, who lives with her family in Hayward Close, Chippenham, and was a runner up in the Gazette & Herald’s recent Stars of Tomorrow competition with charity Bag4Sport, whose backing helped to provide her race helmet, also set a new national record in the time trial, taking an astonishing seven seconds off the previous best set earlier this year with 43.412.

A win in the pursuit handed her the overall win from Louis Rolfe, who also broke the world record in his flying 200m.

Mum Lisajayne said: “Lauren was really pleased to get the world record and the overall win.

“People at the event were saying it was about time it (the record) was broken as it had stood for ten years.

“The cup is quite a big event and Dame Sarah Storey (11-time Paralympic champion) was there in her first race back (after having a baby).

“Lauren has also been selected for the Talente ID programme by British Cycling and she’ll go to some training camps in the new year, so she’s excited about that.’’

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