Day six: how the Irish fared

Ireland’s James Dwyer finished in sixth place overall in the Equestrian Freestyle Test Grade IV Greenwich Park yesterday morning…

Ireland’s James Dwyer finished in sixth place overall in the Equestrian Freestyle Test Grade IV Greenwich Park yesterday morning with a score of 74.4 per cent.

Equestrian team manager Dara Kearney said after the event: “I was very please with James Dwyer’s performance. James rode superbly achieving a personal best. He gave it everything, had no wrong moves and the score speaks for itself.”

Seán Baldwin took part in the 50m Rifle Prone yesterday, his third competition of the London 2012 Paralympics Games. It was his best performance to date, scoring a new personal best of 585 to finish 18th of the 48 competitors. It was only four marks away from the qualifying score for the eight- man final which was 589.

Baldwin said: “I’m happy with that performance in tricky conditions. I was aiming for 590 as I reckoned that would be the qualifying mark for the final but I am satisfied with the PB and I am well set up for my final competition tomorrow.”

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Gold medallist Darragh McDonald was back in action yesterday morning following his heroics in the pool on Saturday night. McDonald, who won Gold in the S6 400m Freestyle on Saturday, was competing in the S6 50m Freestyle event.

The Asgard SC swimmer went into the morning heats as the 12th fastest qualifier but set a new personal best of 33.15 to qualify for the evening’s final. He swam 33.26 in the final to finish in 8th position

Limerick’s James McCarthy finished 13th position overall in this mornings Shot Putt F57/58 competition final with a throw of 10.70.

Speaking about his experience McCarthy commented: I think in the first putt, I may have had a rush of blood to the head. For the second one I needed to relax and start doing what I had been doing in training.

“For the third one I just went for it and that was my best throw. It was a dream come true to be back here 16 years after my last games in Atlanta and to have my family here to see it.”

Equestrian

Freestyle Test: 1 M George (Bel) 82.100; 2 S Wells (Gbr) 81.150; 3 F Hosmar (Ned) 78.600; 6 J Dwyer (Irl) 74.400

Individual Freestyle Test 1a

1 S Christiansen (Gbr) 84.750; 2 L Tan (Sin) 79.000; 3 Helen Kearney (Irl) 78.450; 5 Geraldine Savage (Irl) 72.300

Shooting

50m Rifle Prone Qualifiers: 1 AS Alaryani (UAE) 592; 2 J Jakobsson (Swe) 591, 3 JA Saavedra Reinaldo (Esp) 590; 18 S Baldwin (Irl) 585

Swimming

Men’s 50m Freestyle — S6 Final: 1 Qing Xu (Chn) 28.57secs (WR); 2 Lorenzo Perez Escalona (Cub) 30.04, 3 Tao Zheng (Chn) 30.06; 8 Darragh McDonald (Irl) 33.26

Athletics

Shot Putt F57/58 final

Qualifiers: 1 A Ashapatov (Rus) 16.20; 2 J Rokicki (Pol) 15.68; 3 M Louwrens (Rsa) 13.64; 13 J McCarthy (Irl) 10.70