Eleven Irish athletes will compete on Day two of the Paralympic Games in Paris, and five potential finals will be targeted.
One final is assured with Róisín Ní Ríaian back in the pool in one of her strongest events, the 100 M Backstroke after coming fourth in the same distance Butterfly on opening night.
Ellen Keane gets her fifth and Final Paralympic Games underway this morning in the 100-meter breaststroke before the attention switches to Para-Cycling, where Katie George Dunleavy, Eve McCrystal, Josephine Healion, Linda Kelly, and Ronan Grimes are all in action.
Ten of Ireland’s 35-strong teams are in action on the opening day.
Here is when and in what they are competing.
08:00 Kerrie Leonard Para-Archery 1/16 Elimination Round
09:50 Katie O’Brien and Tiernan O’Donnell PR2 Mixed Double Sculls Heat
10:22 Ellen Keane SB8 100M Breaststroke Heat
10:30 Ronan Grimes Para Cycling C4-5 1000M Time Trial
11:11 Shauna Bocqet Para Athletics Women’s T54 5000M Heat
12:58 Katie George Dunleavy and Eve McCrystal; Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly Para Cycling Women’s 1000 M Time Trial Qualifying
13:52 Ronan Grimes Para Cycling C4-5 1000M Time Trial**
15:34 Katie George Dunleavy and Eve McCrystal; Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly Para Cycling Women’s 1000 M Time Trial Final**
18:51 Róisín Ní Ríain Para Swimming S13 100 M Backstroke Final Final **
19:21 Ellen Keane Para Swimming SB8 100 M Breaststroke Final **
** If Advancing from Earlier Round
And here is a little more about each of them as individuals
Ellen Keane
Paris will be Ellen Keane’s fifth and final Paralympic Games. She was Ireland’s youngest ever athlete at 13 when she competed at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. She competed impressively, placing sixth in the 100m breaststroke.
At the London 2012 Games she qualified for three finals and followed that up in 2013 by claiming two bronze medals at the IPC World Championships in Montreal, Canada marking her first time to make a major international podium.
The following year she went on to make three fourth place finishes and swim two lifetime bests at the European Championships in Eindhoven. At the IPC World Championships in Glasgow in 2015, Ellen secured a bronze medal after a fantastic finish in the 200m Individual Medley final (SM9) where she also set a new lifetime best time.
She also represented Ireland at the 2016 IPC Swimming European Open Championships where she secured two lifetime best swims.
Rio was Ellen’s third Paralympic Games and saw her make the podium claiming a brilliant bronze medal in the final of the SB8 100m Breaststroke. She also swam lifetime bests finishing eighth in each of the S9 100m Backstroke and Butterfly finals.
At the 2018 World European Para-Swim Championships Ellen added to her long list of honours with a gold and bronze in the 200m Individual Medley and the 100m breaststroke.
Ellen added a bronze medal to her tally at the World Para Swimming Championships in London with a season’s best performance in the 100m breaststroke SB8. This performance saw Ellen named on the RTÉ Sport Awards 2019 Sportsperson of the Year alongside team mate Nicole Turner.
The Tokyo Paralympic Games were pivotal for Keane as she swam to the pinnacle of her sport and eclipsed her bronze medal from Rio by winning gold in the 100m breaststroke SB8.
She secured a world silver in the 100 Breaststroke SB8 Final for Team Ireland at the 2023 World Para Swimming Championships in Manchester and an all important slot for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
At her final European Championships in Madiera this April, Keane won her final European medal, silver in the 100 m Breaststroke SB8.
From Clontarf, she studied Culinary Entrepreneurship in DIT Aungier Street.
Ellen was born without part of her left arm below her elbow.
Ronan Grimes
Róisín Ní Ríaian
Róisín announced her arrival on the world stage with a string of impressive swims at the World Para Swimming Series Italy in late 2020. She made her major championship debut at the European Championships in Madeira in May 2021 where she won a bronze medal in the S13 backstroke and also made five other finals.
The Limerick native made her Paralympic debut in Tokyo where she competed in six events and qualified for five finals.
She is the current World Para Swimming Champion in the 100m Backstroke and also holds the World Record in the 200m backstroke, which she set in 2023.
In 2023 Róisín was nominated for an RTÉ Sports Award in both the Sportsperson of the Year and Young Sportsperson of the year categories. She also received a nomination for a HerSports Award in the Young Athlete of the Year category. At the Swim Ireland awards the same year she was named Performance Para Swimmer of the Year.
At the Para Swimming European Championships this year Roisin Ni Riain returned to Ireland with five medals: 2 gold, 3 silver and one bronze.
While competing at an elite level in swimming, Róisín is also balancing her academic pursuits, and is studying for a Degree in Science at the University of Limerick.
Katie George Dunleavy and Eve McCrystal
Paris will be Eve’s fourth Paralympic Games. She is a member of An Garda Síochána.
Kerrie Leonard
Kerrie Leonard will make her second appearance at a Paralympic Games in Paris this summer. Kerrie took up archery seriously after meeting her coach, two-time Olympic archer Jim Conroy who is also from Meath. She first competed for Ireland in 2012, took a break and returned to the sport in 2014. She finished 9th at the World Championships in 2015 and won silver at the 2016 European Championships when she came very close to qualifying for the Rio Paralympic Games. With no European Championships possible for Tokyo it was amalgamated into a Paralympic Qualifier. At this competition she finished 5th in the World qualifier and 6th in the European Qualifier which earner her a bipartite slot for Tokyo. She finished 9th overall at the Tokyo Games.
Kerrie has a Degree in Equine Business from NUI Maynooth and a masters in Marketing from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Kerrie is a wheelchair user since being paralysed from the waist down after a fall from a tractor in 1997 when she was 6. From March to October she trains outdoors at home on a tarmac driveway, but she also has a simulator that she can use to train indoors.
Kerrie is from a farming background and a safety advocate for farm safety. She studied Equine Business in Maynooth University; she then went on to complete a Marketing Masters in UCD in 2019.
Josephine Healion and Linda Kelly
Josephine Healion competes in the women’s tandem events on both track and road. Since 2023, Healion has combined with pilots Eve McCrystal in international road competitions and Linda Kelly in international track competitions.
Healion and Kelly won a bronze medal in the women’s tandem road race at the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships. Paris will be her first Paralympic Games.
Linda Kelly rides on both the road and track as a women’s tandem pilot. On the road, Kelly won double gold at the 2023 UCI World Championships alongside Katie-George Dunlevy as well as overall victory in the UCI Para-cycling World Cup. In 2022, Kelly also won bronze at the UCI World Championships as pilot to Josephine Healion. Paris will be her first Paralympic Games.
Shauna Boquet
Shauna will make her Paralympic debut in Paris in August. She made her first appearance for Ireland at the Para Athletics World Championships last summer.
The rising para athletics star posted three personal bests over one weekend in June at the WPA Grand Prix in Switzerland pushing 11:07:20 in the 5k, 16.38 in the 100m and 3:17.22 in the 1500m. She then went on to break her personal best in the 1500m at the Daniela Jutzeier Memorial.
Bocquet took to the track in the 800m Wheelchair Women at the Wanda Diamond League in London this July and stormed home setting a new PB of 1:48.42 and a 4th place finish.
She is a student at Atlantic Technological University studying Sport and Exercise Science. She will be starting her third year in September.
Bocquet played a pivotal role in the development of the new athletics track in Craughwell. In October 2020, during Covid she did her first marathon (26 miles is 42km) on a 5km road loop, which she completed in two hours and 22 minutes as part of “The 42 Challenge” which raised €50,000, and funded the initial groundworks. A combination of further fundraising and government funding raised the rest of the €355,000 costs and the track was completed in three years in a place that describes itself as ‘the village that loves athletics’.
Katie O’Donnell and Tiernan O’Donnell
Katie discovered Para rowing through a Paralympics Ireland come and try sports day after being inspired by the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
She started rowing with Galway Rowing Club with the aim of reaching the Paralympics which proved to be a difficult path as she is dependent on a male rowing partner for the PR2 Mixed Sculls. She previously rowed for UCD Rowing Club while studying Veterinary Medicine.
Katie won her first World Championship Medal at the 2019 World Rowing Championships in Linz, securing bronze in the PR2 W1x category. By 2022, Katie had made significant progress, winning gold at the World Rowing Championships and setting a new world record in the PR2 W1x. She was named Irish Times Sportswoman of the Month for September 2022.
In the 2023 World Rowing Championships, Katie placed 5th in the PR2 Mix2x alongside Steven McGowan, qualifying the boat for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. The pair also achieved a 5th-place finish at the European Championships that year.
Katie will row with Tiarnán O’ Donnell from Limerick for the 2024 Paralympic Games.
Tiarnán is a relative newcomer to rowing, has already shown immense potential. The Limerick native initially made a name for himself as one of Ireland’s top wheelchair basketball players. He has won several national titles and cups with his local team, the Limerick Celtics and has also won national player of the year awards as well as European All-Star awards. He captained the Irish U23 Wheelchair Basketball team to the medal podium in Finland in 2023.
He transitioned to rowing through the PTSB NextGen programme and moved to Cork to base himself closer to the National Rowing Centre. His rapid progress and natural talent have earned him a place alongside Katie to compete in Paris in the PR2 Mixed Double Sculls.
In May, Tiarnán won his first international medal at the 2024 World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne, Switzerland in the PR2 single sculls. He followed that up by winning his second medal, another silver, at the 2024 World Rowing Cup III in Poznan again in the in the PR2 single sculls.
Tiarnán was diagnosed with a rare malformation in his right leg at the age of five. He underwent operations every few months throughout the rest of his childhood and when he reached his teens, his condition began to rapidly deteriorate. Following consultation with doctors from the USA, he was re-diagnosed with a rare tumour called a Fibro-Adipose Vascular Anomaly. He was just the sixteenth person in the world diagnosed with this condition. In the summer before his Leaving Cert year, he underwent an extremely risky procedure to try remove a large portion of the tumour from his calf. Unfortunately, during the operation he got severe nerve damage leaving my leg paralysed. He became extremely ill in during his Leaving Cert year due to his treatment and afterward made the difficult decision to amputate his leg. He moved to London in 2018 for the procedure spending two weeks in hospital after the surgery and then moved home to recover. Six weeks later he flew back to London and had to learn how to walk again which took 13 days of vigorous physio and gym work to achieve.
He attended the University of Limerick, graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He was a recipient of a sports scholarship while he was a student there.
He has a twin brother.
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