Roísín Ní Riain aiming to build on her fourth place for remaining races
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 second half of the race to shred the gap on the Uzbekistan swimmer to her immediate left. It was a gap that kept shrinking all the way to the wall. A gap still remained, though, when the wall did come.
A small pocket of Uzbek supporters had held up the start of this final with their incessant clapping and chanting. Completely oblivious to the silence all around them in the La Défense Arena. Swimming etiquette they’ve not yet acquired. It being Night One of Day One, maybe we should cut them some slack. They’ll surely learn as they go.
The Uzbeks were clapping and hollering again at the finish. Their own 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.
Being visually impaired, the Limerick teenager had no idea the extent to which she was closing on the swimmer right next to her and the third podium step.
“In the VI classification I’d say most of us don’t know where we are, so no, I definitely didn’t know where I was. I suppose that’s a bit of the fun of it as well, swim your own race and try to get your hand on the wall as quick as you can.
“I don’t think of fourth as a disappointing place to finish. It’s a place higher than I went into the heats this morning. Hopefully I’ll build on that for the rest of the week.”
It’s a busy rest of week. She returns to the water on Friday evening for her favoured S13 100m backstroke. No heats, a straight final. It is the event where she is the current World champion. One of her main medal threats will be the Italian Carlotta Gilli who claimed gold in the 100m butterfly.
Earlier in the evening, Nicole Turner touched sixth in the S6 50m freestyle final. The opening question put to the Portarlington native inquired how she felt about her 35.65 time and where it placed her. 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 morning heat swim 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, her 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.”
In Turner’s heat yesterday morning, 17-year-old Games debutant Dearbhaile Brady produced a lifetime best of 36.45 which left her 10th overall and half a second shy of a final lane.
“I came out today very nervous; I think it’s good to have them. With it being my first Games and first event, I was hoping to make the final, but it didn’t happen. I still have one more event, so I’m going to put my head down.” Both Brady and Turner now have five days to reset ahead of their stronger S6 50m butterfly event on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in the French capital, Kerrie Leonard finished 21st of 28 archers in the women’s individual compound open ranking round. Her score of 653, from a potential total of 720, was just off her 662 season’s best.
Leonard returns to the lawns of Esplanade des Invalides this morning for her elimination round against 2016 Olympic champion Jiamin Zhou. The Chinese archer shot 676 yesterday. The elimination round does exactly what it says on the tin: win and you progress to the next round on Saturday, lose and your Paralympics is done.
“I personally prefer the head-to-heads and hopefully that will show,” said Leonard. “The long part of the shoot was today – two and a half hours. Endurance shooting is a lot different than that head-to-head match. When you’re head-to-head with somebody, it’s me and against you. You can see the whites of their eyes!”
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