Nicole Turner finishes eighth in final of 400m freestyle in Rio

Nicole Turner finished eighth in the S6 400m freestyle final at the Olympic Aquatic arena in Rio on Tuesday night.

The 14-year-old Laois girl went into the final, as the sixth fastest qualifier from the heats earlier in the day, but there’s no doubt that the toll of her hectic race schedule had to be a factor.

Turner swam a season’s best of 5:51.99 in the heat, while coming home in 5:54.61 in the final won by Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Mereshko, who added a Paralympics record to the world mark she already possessed.

China’s Lingling Song was some four seconds adrift in second place while Britain’s Ellie Simmonds won the bronze medal.

Turner’s qualification for the 400m final continued a fine Paralympics for the teenage Irish swimmer after she reached the finals of the 50m Freestyle, 50m Butterfly and 200m Individual Medley.

She has two more events left, the 100 metres Breaststroke on Thursday and the 100 metres Freestyle on Saturday.

Castleknock’s Ailbhe Kelly was ‘disappointed’ after finishing sixth in her heat of the S8 100m Backstroke. She clocked 1:29.48 seconds.

“I’m probably a little bit disappointed, to be honest. All of the sprints I did in the warm-up, I probably should have gone a bit faster.”

The start to the sailing was delayed by slack winds but when it did commence the Irish keelboat of Austin O’Carroll, Ian Costelloe and John Twomey could only manage 12th place in race three, following on from 10th and 14th positions yesterday. The start to race four was also put back.

The wind dissipated and so race four in the Sonar class was cancelled and rescheduled for Wednesday.