Personal Bests, Finals, a fourth placed finish and the reaction to having large crowds cheering on our athletes.
Para Swimming
Róisín Ní Riain took to the La Défense stage last night for the Women’s 100m Butterfly S13 Final. The Limerick native competing in her second Paralympic Games, reacted third quickest off the blocks. On the turn, Ní Riain was in fifth place, eventually
finishing fourth in a time of 1:06.04, a mere .04 of a second off her lifetime best and just over half of a second off a podium place.
Speaking after the final, Ní Riain said, “It was a good swim, obviously every time you get in, you’d like to PB. I was .04 off my PB so it’s probably as close as you can get. I’d definitely like to have been faster tonight but for day one it’s a good
start and hopefully I can build on that for the rest of the week.”
“It’s been really nice so far, it’s very different to Tokyo with having the crowd in Paris. It’s a lot of my families first time at a major international, so it’s nice to have them here.”
Earlier in the evening, Nicole Turner clocked a time of 35.65 to finish 6th in the Women’s 50m Freestyle S6 Final. She entered the race as fifth fastest qualifier facing stiff competition, including World Record holder Anna Hontar (Ukraine) and Paralympic Record holder Yuyan Jiang (China), who broke it twice in the one day.
“That was tough, I’m not going to lie, it’s the reality of sport. The objective of the meet is to go faster in the final, it didn’t necessarily go my way there but it’s all a learning curve. This is the reality of sport, not every day is a good day, I think I have to roll with today and see what we can work on, and by tomorrow forget about it and focus on the next event.”
“I always say it’s hard reaching the top, but even way harder to stay there. I think when you are introduced into winning medals, it’s put on you to stay good, I’m not saying you aren’t going to stay good, but it is just that little bit harder. Like I said
this morning, you just have to block out the outside world and focus.”
“Sometimes it can be good (the pressure), this is an event I enjoy, not saying I enjoyed tonight but I always say it’s like a warm-up for Tuesday (50m Butterfly). Tomorrow I’m going to have to forget about tonight, move on and give it my all.”
The Tokyo silver medallist from Portarlington will now turn her attention to the S6 50m Butterfly next Tuesday, 3rd September.
Para Cycling
Damien Vereker, piloted by Mitchell McLaughlin, gave an incredible performance in the qualifying round of the Men’s B 4000m Individual Pursuit which saw the pair not only set a new personal best but also a new national record. They posted a time of 4:14.817 and finished in seventh place overall.
“To be honest I’m just over the moon, I never expected that time to be honest,” said Vereker.
“When you say you might get a three second PB but to get a six second PB. We got the perfect momentum from the start, just kept it going all the way around. Tried not to overcook it but it’s always hard with the 4km Pursuit that you don’t go too hard at the start.”
“The Time Trial now is what I’m really looking forward to, really fast, technical, everything you want, hills, it’s going to be a good test. The road race is another story. I’m looking forward to the road race, I’m mentally prepared to suffer for it and am ready to go.”
Also competing in the qualifying round of the Men’s B 4000m Individual Pursuit were sprint specialists Martin Gordon, piloted by Eoin Mullen who used the event as a warm up ahead of their primary event – the Men’s B 1000m Time Trial, which will take place on Sunday. The pair finished in 12th place with a time of 5:27.654.
“We normally wouldn’t ride in this event, we were coming in to get a hit out ahead of Sunday, basically you could see the other sprint bikes doing the same thing,” said Mullen.
“We had a tumble on Monday, so this gave us a chance to see how our bodies were feeling, a bit of a tester, to see the audience and get that under your belt and then hopefully prepares us for Sunday.”
“Nothing has compared to this, this is my second Games but you can’t compare it to Tokyo, they are two completely different events, ” added Gordon.
“Both equally as significant as each other but when you’re hearing that crowd, it’s such an experience and just being here and your family being in the crowd and being so close to home, there’s something extra special about it.”
“We took a tumble so our bodies are still recovering from that but overall, we are very happy. We are very enthusiastic for Sunday and hopefully we’ll be every bit as competitive as we want to be.”
Richael Timothy progressed to the C1-3 3000m Women’s Individual Pursuit Final when she recorded a personal best time of 4.05.247 in her heat coming 7th overall.
“I suppose I missed a bit of track time this year, I’m just so happy to have done a PB, that was my goal, just basically go against yourself. That’s all you can do. Obviously, there are a lot of faster girls here but I’m moving towards them and they’re staying the same. The goal is just to keep that going.”
“It’s really good to open with a PB, just rid of the nerves and just head into the road then.”
“The atmosphere in the velodrome was palpable, and for athletes who made their Paralympic debut in Tokyo getting to experience the crowd was something very special.”
“Coming from football I love a crowd. Anyone shouting really spurs me on. Definitely that show today was great.”
Para Archery
Meath native Kerrie Leonard scored a season best of 653 and finished 21st in the ranking round of the women’s Individual Compound Open and next faces the knock-out stage of competition tomorrow. She will be among the first competitors in action tomorrow in tomorrow’s head-to-head. She faces China’s Jiamin Zhou who finished 12th in today’s ranking round. Zhou is the gold medallist from the 2016 Games in Rio.
“I had some tension in my shoulders for the first few round which I managed to shake off. I looked for the positives in every shot. I will prepare this evening for tomorrow’s competition and will stay focused and positive. My family will be in the stands to cheer me on for the first time ever as they were unable to come to Toyko so I have that to look forward to. Tomorrow’s head-to-head competition suits me we’ll see what happens. I’m focused on my performance.”
With thanks to the great media team working for Paralympics Ireland across the venues in Paris. The team behind the team.
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