Team Ireland’s brilliant form in the pool in Tokyo continued when Portarlington’s Nicole Turner maintaining her unbroken string of personal bests.
A time of 1:40.82 when finishing third in her heat of the SB6 100m Breaststroke knocked 1.63 seconds off Turner’s lifetime best and qualified her fifth fastest to today’s final (9:07am Irish time).
She was particularly delighted considering she is only doing the event to stay sharp for her 50m Butterfly specialty and she said the Irish swim team’s excellent form is down to the extra year of training caused by the COVID postponement of the Games:
“I wasn’t expecting that at all because I don’t really swim breaststroke in training, I normally focus on freestyle and ‘fly.
“To come out with a morning PB and make a final was really important because it’s my last event before the 50m ‘fly. Just to get the experience of the call-room before and after, to get that prep in ahead of my best event is really great.
“Some people might have seen an extra year as a negative but all of us Irish swimmers saw it as a positive. We got in much more training, individually and with our coaches, and we were on camp for three and a half weeks before the Games so we are all prepped very well.”
The SB6 200m final will be a fast one as the four women who qualified ahead of her all broke 1:40 and Britain’s teen sensation Maisie Summers-Newton set a new Paralympic record of 1:33.12 in Nicole’s heat.
