Irish Paralympians Niamh McCarthy and Orla Barry have both won discus silver medals on second night of the Para Athletics World Championships at the Queen Victoria Olympic Park in London.
McCarthy; from Carragline was first up this morning and while she did not match her best mark in competition her fifth throw of 26.17m was good enough to secure a precious silver behind Paralympic champion Raoua Tlili of Tunisia with a Championship record of 32.29m.
Afterwards McCarthy said: “It was a hard competition and my mind let me down a bit. I had to keep a cool head. I know I can throw better but I still got a medal so I can’t complain; I’ll take silver. There was a lot of pressure on my shoulders and it wasn’t my best throw but a medal is a medal. It’s a shame it wasn’t better because I was flying this morning in warm-up – you should have seen me.”
“I have a lot of family with me today, so it’s great to do this in front of them. London nearly feels like home to me, it’s only across the water. My mother is English as well so I had a lot of support from that side of the family. It’s just great to win Ireland’s first medal of the championships!”
Not to be outdone fellow Corkonian Orla Barry secured her World Championships silver tonight in the Olympic Stadium with her best throw of 28.89 coming in the second round. Barry will be pleased to upgrade to silver from the last World Championships in 2015 where she claimed bronze. Paralympic and reigning world champion Nassima Saifi took gold with a massive mark of 34.05m.
Tomorrow three more Irish athletes will race. Kildare wheelchair racer Patrick Monahan will take to the start line in the heats of the T54 1500m on the track at 10.15am with team mate Jason Smyth following up in the heats of the T13 100m at 11.30am. Should they both progress they will contest evening finals tomorrow alongside Michael McKillop who will be defending his T38 800m title at 9.15pm.
More than 1,100 athletes from 95 countries will compete over the ten days (14th – 23rd July) at the London Olympic Stadium with over 250,000 tickets already sold making it by far the biggest in the event’s history.
Paralympics Ireland are providing a media service for the duration of the Championships with daily press releases and all results live on Twitter. Sportsfile will be syndicating images daily reproduction fee free with further updates on Facebook and Instagram. A comprehensive website with full schedule, results and a live feed is also available at www.paraathleticschampionships.com We also have a dedicated page on our website www.paralympics.ie/competitions Channel 4 in the UK will also screen 30 hours of live coverage over the duration of the Championships.
The Irish team is proudly supported by Flogas and Allianz; official partners of Paralympics Ireland.
