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With silver and bronze medals in her back pocket, Róisín Ní Riain was donning the Irish swim cap once again this morning for the 100m Breaststroke SB13 Heat.
The National Centre (Limerick) swimmer headed to the La Défense blocks with the third-fastest entry time, just behind Tokyo silver and bronze medallists Rebecca Redfern (Team GB) and Colleen Young (USA), respectively.
Ní Riain was off the blocks quickest, entering the water 0.64 seconds after the start. It was Redfern who led the way after the first 50 metres, with Ní Riain following closely behind in second, touching the wall in 1:19.05 to finish second in her heat and qualify for tonight’s final in third place.
Speaking after the race, the 19-year-old said: “It’s definitely a case of a job well done this morning. I wanted to get out and have a good morning swim to get into tonight’s final. I’ve been looking forward to this event. I always love the 100m Breaststroke. It was nice to come out this morning, have a bit of fun, and make it back tonight. We will see where it goes tonight.
“The fun in our races is that we can’t see the others. It really is just a case of getting in and swimming your own race, then seeing what time is afterwards.”
The Limerick native will be on centre stage this evening for one last dance in Paris, in what will be her fourth final of these Paralympic Games, set to get underway at 6:33 pm (IRE).
Róisín Ní Riain brought her Paris 2024 Paralympic Games to a close with a fourth-place finish in the women’s 100m Breaststroke SB13 Final, finishing in a time of 1:19.16.
Ní Riain started the race quickest as she took off the blocks first, she continued to battle through the water throughout the race taking the first 50-metres out strongly. Heading into the second 50-metres Ní Riain was in fourth position. It was bronze medallist Collen Young (Team USA) who stopped the block ahead of Ní Riain to secure bronze in 1:18.52, while Team GB’s Rebecca Redfern winning gold (1:16.02) and silver going to Olivia Chambers (1:17.70) of Team USA.
Speaking directly after tonight’s final, Ní Riain said, “I’m disappointed, I’m not going to lie but you have good swims and bad swims. I hope I’ll be able to look back in a bit and be happy with my performances but disappointed with that.
“I probably got a bit too excited, definitely didn’t hit some of the things I needed to but it’s all learning.
“Coming here and getting two medals is definitely something I wanted so I’m happy with that. Of course, that’s not what I’m thinking about right now, but I’ll be able to look back and be happy with that. I always have high expectations of myself and I’m definitely capable of more than that there.
“For vision impaired kids to be able to see people like them is really nice, I definitely would have liked to have had that when I was younger.
“My family have been great, loads of them came over and I’m really glad that they were able to be a part of that.”
Ní Riain, under coach John Szaranek at National Centre (Limerick), comes away from her second Paralympic Games with two medals, winning silver in the 100m Backstroke (S13), followed up with a bronze in the 200m Individual Medley (SM13).
Tomorrow, Barry McClements will bring the curtain down on Team Ireland’s racing in the La Défense Arena as he competed in the Men’s 100m Butterfly (S9) event, set to get underway at 9:18am.
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