Róisín Ní Riain just missed out on a medal on the first evening of action in the pool at the Paralympic in Paris on Thursday night, finishing fourth in the Women’s 100m Butterfly S13 Final.
The Limerick native competing in her second Paralympic Games, reacted third quickest off the blocks at the La Défense Arena. 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.”
The Limerick native on the experience so far: “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.”
The attention will now turn to Friday night for Ní Riain as she competes in one her favoured events, the 100m Backstroke S13 Final, set to get underway at 18:51 (IRL).
Earlier in the evening, Nicole Turner clocked a time of 35.65 to finish sixth 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. Turner, who is competing in her third Paralympic Games.
Speaking afterwards, the Portarlington native said: “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 will now turn her attention to the S6 50m Butterfly next Tuesday, September 3
Earlier this afternoon in the velodrome, 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.
Damien Vereker said, “To be honest I’m just over the moon, I never expected that time to be honest. 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.
Eoin Mullen said, “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. 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.”
Martin Gordon said, “Nothing has compared to this, this is my second Games but you can’t compare it to Tokyo, they are two completely different events. 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.”
Earlier today, 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.
Timothy said: “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.”
Looking ahead to the remainder of the Games, she added:
“I think the road race is probably my best chance, there’s no thinking involved which suits me, anything can happen on the day while here you’re against the clock so I’m looking forward to that.”
“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.”
In 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.
She said, “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.”