Three of the five Irish swimmers in action at the opening meet of the new Para Swimming World Series in Copenhagen this weekend have progressed to contest five of tonight’s finals.
Fourteen-year-old Nicole Turner, Rio Paralympic medallist Ellen Keane, and upcoming youngster Barry McClements all progressed from various heats this morning to set up a busy night of finals for the Irish team here in Denmark. All races at this new World Series are being run as multi classification meaning advancement from the heats is determined based on a points system.
Rio Paralympian Nicole Turner was the first Irish swimmer to advance to an evening final. The Laois Marlins swimmer placed sixth overall in the heats of the 50m butterfly in a time of 39.30. She quickly followed this up with seventh overall in the heats of the 400m Freestyle to set up an exciting evening for herself with two finals.
Paralympic bronze medallist Ellen Keane was next to advance swimming impressively to place third of twenty-nine entries in the 100m Breaststroke; the event in which she triumphed in Rio. She followed this up taking fourth overall in the heats of the 100m Backstroke to book a place in that final tonight also.
Team mate Barry McClements opened his international season with thirteenth overall in 100m Freestyle heats. However, the fifteen year old fared much better in the heats of the 400m Freestyle where he swam a new personal best of 4:35.04 to place second overall advancing to tonight’s final.
Earlier on double Paralympian James Scully placed 19th overall in the heats of the 100m Freestyle. He concluded his day with an eighteenth-place finish in the 50m Freestyle heats. The Meath man races again in the morning.
UCD student Patrick Flanagan was the final Irish swimmer in action this morning racing the 400m Freestyle and the 100m Backstroke heats in quick succession. The nineteen-year-old placed tenth and ninth respectively in each. Notably he recorded a new personal best time of 1:26.78 in the 100m backstroke and is reserve for both finals tonight.
The evening session gets underway at 4pm Irish time this evening and live results are available on http://www.titanium-media.de/cms/index.php?id=20&va_id=249&date=2017-03-11
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 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.
