– Ryan Bailey reports from the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Rio de Janeiro
FOUR EVENTS, FOUR finals, 14 years of age.
Nicole Turner has quickly become the star of this Paralympics Games and she’s proving to be about the only bright spark from an Irish point of view at the minute.
The Laois teenager finished eighth in the final of tonight’s S6 400m freestyle but competing in four medal races out of four is some achievement for a swimmer of her age.
After a busy few days, Turner had very little left in the tank and an evacuation of Ireland’s block in the Athlete’s Village earlier didn’t help her preparations for the race.
“The fire alarm started going off and woke me from my sleep, we all had to evacuate the building and weren’t allowed back in so I didn’t really get much sleep,” she explained afterwards.
“It was pretty hard but I’m happy (with the swim) I’m pretty tired now and looking forward to a day off tomorrow.”
Turner has two events remaining, the 100m breaststroke on Thursday and the 100m freestyle on Saturday: “I’m excited about them, they’re my favourite events so I’m looking forward to that.”
Ukrainian Yelyzaveta Mereshko won gold in a time of 5:17.01 but Great Britain’s Ellie Simmons had to settle for bronze behind Lingling Song of China.
Meanwhile, there was disappointment for Ailbhe Kelly who failed to advance from her S8 100m backstroke heat while Phil Eaglesham finished 30th in qualifying for the mixed 10m air rifle prone.
Elsewhere, the Irish sailing team were back on the water today in the third race of the sonar class. Proceedings were delayed due to light wind conditions before the trio of John Twomey, Ian Costelloe and Austin O’Carroll came home in 12th. It leaves them in 13th position overall.
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