Irish Paracyclist Colin Lynch has claimed the silver medal in the Men’s Individual Time Trial 2 in Rio today.
Lynch rode brilliantly to clock a time of 28.02.25 and secure his place on the podium. The Canadian rider, Tristen Chernove took gold in a time of 27.43.16, just over 19 seconds ahead of Lynch while Guihua Luang of China, took bronze, over fifteen seconds down on the Irish rider.
Speaking from Pontal where the event was held, a beaming Lynch said “It’s four years and to achieve the one thing I didn’t have, a Paralympic medal. It was really close and I was trying to figure out how to get everything out of myself. It was really really close.”
Also in action at Pontal this morning, Declan Slevin finished 11th in the Men’s H3 Time Trial in Rio. The first time Paralympian held 11th place throughout the 20km course that was won by Vittorio Podesta (ITA), Walter Ablinger (AUT) won silver and Charles Moreau (CAN) took bronze.
“It was a good performance. The conditions were unbelievable on the way back, I didn’t realise the wind was that strong until I turned on the bend. The course was flat enough apart from the wind so it was all just power, power, the strong guy with the bigger arms was always going to win it.”
Team mate Ciara Staunton finished 11th in the Women’s H1-3 Time Trial in a time of 45.28.69 behind eventual winner Karen Drake who finished with a time of 33.44.93.
At the Aquatics Centre, Clontarf’s Ellen Keane has booked her place in tonight’s SB8 100m Breaststroke Final after a heat winning performance in this morning’s preliminaries in Rio.
The 21-year-old, who is competing in her third Paralympic Games, progressed comfortably from the heats in 1:23.64 and was happy with this morning’s win “I’m excited, I knew that we only needed to drop off one swimmer so I knew the other girls would probably be taking it easy, but for me it was important to just get out and have a fast Breaststroke swim for myself, there’s a lot more in the tank fortonight”.
The SB8 100m Breaststroke Final will take place at 9.36pm (Ireland).
In Canoeing, Cork paddler Patrick O’Leary made Irish Paralympic history by qualifying for tomorrow’sKL3 canoeing final. This is the first time that the sport of canoeing been included on the Paralympic programme, in the form of 200m flatwater sprints. He started well by finishing third in his heat, in a time of 45.97 seconds, and, within an hour, went even faster when finishing third in the semi-final in 44.13 to clinch his spot in the final.
“It feels absolutely brilliant. I was coming in ranked seventh and if I hadn’t made a final I would have been disappointed but the guys out there really threw it up to us and the guys behind me were in my sights all the way,” he said. “It was a bit hard to race twice in such a short time. It’s about performance for me now. There’s a couple of guys within spitting distance of me so hopefully I can knock one or two of them off and see what comes.”
The KL3 canoeing final tomorrow (Thursday) takes place at 10:10am (14:10 Irish time).
Elsewhere, in Shooting, Sean Baldwin was competing in his third and final event today, the R6 50m Rifle Prone. Baldwin finished in 29th place with a score of 605.9 as a fourth round of 99.3 saw him drop down the rankings after he recovered from a poor opening round of 100.6. Only the top eight from the qualifier progress to the final.
An upbeat and positive Baldwin explained “The heat was up, the wind was up and my form was up as well. It mightn’t look like it on the scores but I really shot some great scores today. I got caught out a few times on the wind but I felt really good.” Reflecting on the Rio Paralympic Games Sean explained“This is what it’s all about, every four years the games come around and to represent your own country at these events is amazing”.
