Bubbly Bethany enjoys golden moment

When Bethany Firth touched the wall after one minute and 8.93 seconds of the 100m backstroke S14 final shortly before 8pm last night she thought she had done enough to win a bronze.

She was wrong, of course. She had earned the gold instead.

Within 10 minutes, this bubbly 16-year old was being ushered into the mixed zone to share her thoughts and the magnitude of it all was still knocking on the door to be let in. “It’s amazing,” beamed Firth, who has an intellectual disability. “Words can’t describe how I feel.”

The second of Firth’s surprises was that she had just secured Ireland’s first medal of these Paralympic Games. “Is it? Oh, that’s really good, yeah,” she laughed in an admirable display of one teenager’s ability to shut out the hullabaloo of a major global event.

Within an hour she had returned poolside for the victory ceremony: her green, white and gold nails matching the tricolour being hoisted above the starting blocks just over 50 metres away as the unmistakable airs of Amhrann na bhFiann filtered round the East End for the second time in three weeks or so.

If Katie Taylor’s was expected, Firth’s was hoped for, at best. Her last six months had been hijacked by a persistent shoulder injury that required attention as recently as this week, so it was no wonder she bounded around like, well, a giddy teenager.

Firth was one of two strong Irish medal contenders entering the second day of these Games. For the other, Colin Lynch, it was one to forget after an agonising loss in the bronze medal race in the para-cycling individual pursuit C2.

His opponent was 2008 Paralympic champion Laurent Thirione of France, who had spent much of the four years since away from the bike and Lynch led for the entire race only to be pipped on the finishing line. The final margin? A paltry 0.12 seconds.

“I was ahead for all the race and obviously right at the end I could see that he was coming back and coming back. I dug as deep as I could but there comes a point when the legs just get a bit too heavy and he just got me by the width of a hair on the line.

“There’s not much you can say to make it better.”

Unlike Firth, Lynch had inhaled too much of the Paralympic vibe.

“It’s everything from the waiting around to ride and perhaps the excitement of seeing my team-mates ride [Thursday],” he admitted. “Maybe I was a bit too excited for them and should have rested a bit more to save up for myself.”

Still, it wasn’t a day lacking in good news.

Earlier in the Velodrome, Catherine Walsh and Fran Meehan set a new Irish record of 1:12.864 to finish fifth in the individual 1km time trial B final, while Katie-George Dunlevy and Sandra Fitzgerald set a PB in the same event.

Cycling team-mate Enda Smyth had already set his second PB of the Games by then in the individual pursuit.

Heather Jameson’s best ever effort landed her in ninth in the long jump F37/38 final while Laurence McGivern posted a lower time than ever before in the heats for the 100m backstroke before finishing eight in the final.

There were disappointments too: among them were Cork’s John McCarthy who failed to qualify for the final of the club throw, Sean Baldwin in the 10m air rifle SH1 and the mixed four rowers, who were diverted into today’s repechage after yesterday’s heat in Eton Dorney.