Four of the Irish swimmers competing at the inaugural Para Swimming World Series Meet in Copenhagen have qualified for this evening’s finals. Ellen Keane, Barry McClements, Nicole Turner and Patrick Flanagan will feature across six of tonight’s finals on the concluding day of the event.
Gold medallist in the 400m Freestyle yesterday McClements continued his excellent form by taking over two seconds off his personal best whilst finishing third in the 100m Butterfly to advance to the final. Later, in the heats of the 200m Individual Medley the Newtonards teenager finished in another personal best time of 2:34.41 which was also good enough to secure a place in that final.
Rio Paralympic medallist Keane will contest two finals after qualifying ranked first for the 100m Butterfly Final in a time of 1:12.93. Although the vast majority of races at this new World Series are being run as multi classification meaning results are determined based on a points system, there are a handful of single class events on the programme. One of those is the SM9 200m Individual Medley final where Keane will be targeting a strong showing after securing a place in qualifying this morning.
Longford’s Patrick Flanagan raced the heats of the 200m Freestyle and the 50m Backstroke in quick succession this morning, recording his second personal best of the meet in the latter to qualify for the final. The nineteen-year-old placed seventh and twelfth respectively in each.
Rio Paralympian Nicole Turner contested one event this morning – the heats of the 200m Individual Medley, where she swam a time of 3:16.36 which leaves her ranked second going into tonight’s final.
Earlier today double Paralympian James Scully concluded his meet with an 11th overall in the heats of the 50m Backstroke.
Bringing together some of the biggest competitions on the global calendar, the World Series takes in five countries across Europe and the Americas between March-July, leading into the 2017 World Championships in Mexico City in October. This first meet in Denmark will see 122 swimmers from nineteen countries begin the 2017 international season.
All the athlete’s results at each World Series edition will be calculated using a standardised points system via an online virtual competition platform. This will ensure that the overall World Series winner will be the best performing athlete over the duration of the series, meaning that every performance counts.
