WHEN RÓISÍN NÍ Riain made her Paralympics bow in Tokyo three years ago, she was just 16.
The youngest member of the Team Ireland contingent in Japan, she was still quite new to international swimming having only made the breakthrough at 15. A World Para Swimming Series in Italy eased her in before she won a bronze medal in the 100m Backstroke at the 2021 European Para-Swimming Championship.
Unsurprisingly, the trip to Tokyo was her longest stretch away from home. And quite a long distance from home too. But there was no time to feel daunted by the occasion as she reached five finals out of the six events she was competing in.
“Everything happened very quickly with it being a Covid year,” she tells The42. ”I went from my very first competition straight to Europeans and pretty much straight into the Games so it all happened very quickly. There wasn’t much time to stop and reflect until it was all over.”
Still only 18, and studying a science teaching degree in UL, Ní Riain now feels much more familiar with the international environment as the Paris Games approach. After securing a qualification slot for Team Ireland at the World Para Championships last year, her aim is to nail down the minimum qualifying standard to stamp her own ticket to the Games.
As the current World Para swimming champion in the 100m backstroke, there’s plenty for her to feel confident at this remove from the Paralympics. On the day we speak, Ní Riain is not long home from Australia where she won five gold medals at the Citi Para Swimming World Series in Melbourne on the back of a three-week training camp.
She allowed herself some time to re-acclimate on her return, and shake off the effects of jetlag before jumping back in the pool. But at least she’s rewarding herself with an extra hour in bed every morning.
“The alarm goes off at 5.45 in the morning and then we train from around 6.30am to 8.30am or 9am. Then back, breakfast and into a day of college of lectures, labs, tutorials or whatever I might have on different days. And then training again from 4-6 in the evening. Some evenings we’re in the gym from 6-7pm after the swim a couple of evenings a week.
“And then after that, it’s about getting back, eating, maybe catching up on a bit of work and bed early enough so that we can get up and do it all again.”
The bite of a March morning is no easy thing to push through during these early rises, particularly when Ní Riain has just come home from Australia’s warmer summer climate. But pain is part of the currency for an elite athlete.
“I’ve been doing it since I was nine or 10 years old but they don’t get much easier,” she says. “You just get used to it. It becomes a part of life.
“You still get up and you’re tired when the alarm goes off and you don’t want to get out of bed. But that’s where the discipline comes into play. The alarm has gone off and I need to get up, eat and get to the pool. It’s a mind over matter situation and that’s what makes the difference then in the end.”
Ní Riain competes in the S13 category in Para swimming which is for athletes with a visual impairment. She was born with coloboma, which affects the distance of her sight as well as her peripheral vision. Every session in the pool presents challenges for her to figure out along with all the other demands that swimmers face.
Maintaining a straight course in her lane is one of the many areas to concentrate on for Ní Riain when she competes.
“They’re some of the little things that I do that makes it slightly different for me than everyone else. I have to have that little bit extra focus on. I can’t ever turn my brain off fully,” she says.
Counting her strokes is one method Ní Riain uses to help her keep track of where she is in the water in relation to the wall and her position in the lane.
“If you watch any of our races, we’re probably not swimming in the straightest of lines. But that’s just always about trying your best to stay in the centre of the lane. Some people like to go over to the side of the lane from the start so that they’re not going all over the place.
“There’s not really too many ways around it other than maybe going over to the side of the lane if it’s a stroke that you really struggle with so that you won’t be swimming from side to side. Sometimes that works for certain people, it definitely works for me for some of the strokes. Other than that, it’s just doing your best and keeping your head as steady as possible.”
The road to Paris continues with more hard training for Ní Riain leading up to the European Championships in Madeira next month. The Paralympic trials will follow in May as the wait whittles down from months to weeks as time continues to move on.
The Games are always somewhere in the back of her mind, but having passed through the Paralympic village once already, it doesn’t dominate her thoughts.
“I like to take it one race at a time,” she says quoting the mantra of athletes trying to navigate their way through the hype and expectation of a Paralympic year. For Ní Riain though, how she feels on the day of a race surpasses the need to be the best in the water.
“One of the things that’s most important to me is to be able to stand up to the blocks with a smile on my face. I love racing and it’s about giving it my best and being happy with the performance that I can put in.
“It is just another race.”
Swimming sensation Róisín Ní Riain announced as latest addition to Team Visa’s global programme supporting athletes on their journey to Paris 2024
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