Fourth place for Roísín Ní Riain in 100m Butterfly S13 final

Nicole Turner has finished sixth in the Women's 50m Freestyle S6 final.

FOURTH: Roísín Ní Riain finished in fourth place in the Women's 100m Butterfly S13 final. Picture: Sportsfile

Fourth. But not the usual stomach-sinking fourth. Not a fingertip fourth. This was a different, more palatable type of fourth.

Roísín Ní Riain turned fifth at the halfway mark in the S13 100m butterfly final and proceeded over the final 50 metres to close the gap on the Uzbek athlete to her immediate left. It was a gap that shrunk and shrunk all the way to the wall. A notable gap still remained, though, when the wall came.

Uzbekistan's Muslima Odilova touched third in 1:05.43, Ní Riain fourth in 1:06.04. Half a second, plus change. That’s not an insubstantial covering of water over 100m.

Ni Riain’s post-race demeanour reflected as much.

“I’m happy with that swim. I would have liked to have been maybe under my PB (1:06.00), but it’s as close as you can get so I’m happy with that for day one,” said the 19-year-old.

“Look, I don’t think of it as a disappointing place to finish. It’s a place higher than I went into the heats this morning. It’s my first event of every championship, it’s just an enjoyable one for me. I get to go out and have a first swim and hopefully I’ll build on that for the rest of the week.” 

The gold medal, on this opening night of final action at the La Défense Arena, went to Italy’s Carlotta Gilli. The gold medal won in 1:03.27 represented a successful defence of her Tokyo top spot.

Ní Riain is back in the water on Friday evening for her favoured 100m backstroke. No heats, a straight final. That is an event where she is the current World champion.

Earlier in the evening, Nicole Turner touched in sixth in the S6 50m freestyle final. The opening question put to the Portarlington native inquired how she felt about her 35.65 and sixth place finish. Her disappointment went right to the edge of tears. Her voice quivered.

This was not what she had come here to do. Not even close.

She’d swam almost a full second quicker when clocking 34.71 for fifth at last year’s Worlds. Her preparation for this summer’s major told her she could get right on that PB. It didn’t happen. It was gutting.

To actually go backwards by three tenths of a second on her 35.35 heat swim from this morning puzzled her and punched her. She didn’t shy away from what she deemed an “underperformance”.

“That was tough, I am not going to lie. The aim of the final is to get faster than the heat swim. That didn't go my way today,” Turner said, every word shaking.

“At this moment in time, I can't tell you why. But that is the reality of sport. There is the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I am sure I will look back on today and see how I can improve on that performance, but an initial reaction is that it is quite bitter at this moment in time.

“I think my first 25 was quite good, but I think I just drifted in the last 25. And when you are a 50m sprinter, 25 metres is half of the race, so that can take a lot away from you.

“Coming out of a heat, it always is to go faster. I was quite outside my PB this morning. Realistically, I wanted to be as close to my PB, if not on my PB this evening. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, so it does quite feel like an underperformance at this moment in time.” 

The final was won by Yuyan Jiang in 32.59. It was the Chinese swimmer’s second Paralympic record of the day. Even Anna Hontar’s 33.01 for bronze is in a different pool to Turner’s best.

“The reality is the competition is just getting fiercer and fiercer. I think people looked at me as a young 14-year-old coming through, I am now 22, and there are young 14-year-olds coming through who are catching up on me.

“So I think it is the reality of sport, you can't take your head off the line, I am not saying I have done, but it is just quite challenging, especially being in the spotlight as well and people ... not necessarily expect but there is a bit of pressure.”