Ireland's Ellen Keane wins GOLD in SB8 100m Breaststroke at the Paralympics

Swimming

Ellen Keane has won a gold medal for Ireland at the Paralympics in Tokyo.

The 26-year old Clontarf swimmer justified her tag as favourite in the SB8 100m breaststroke with a controlled performance to secure the win in 1:19.93 ahead of New Zealand’s Sophie Pascoe.

Keane was competing in her favoured event, and earlier in the SB8 100m Breaststroke Heats she delivered her best ever performance with a time of 1:21.71.

Keane competed in a tough heat that included Pascoe and Marques Soto (Spain). From the beginning it was clear that it was going to be a head-to-head between Pascoe and Keane with the New Zealander having the edge at the turn.

However, Keane powered back into the race and took the touch ahead of New Zealand’s most decorated Paralympian. Despite the win Ellen was determined to remain grounded.

“The heat was fun, I just wanted to get in and swim fast and that’s what I did. Tonight though the girls that I swim against are world class so anything can happen tonight in the final,” she said.

Limerick teenager Róisín Ní Riain has finished sixth in the S13 100m backstroke final in a new personal best time of 1:08.61.

Yesterday, she was eighth in the S13 100m butterfly final.

This was her favoured event and the 16-year-old underlined her potential when finishing third in her heat in a personal best of 1:09.23.

In a world class field, she swam even better in the final setting a new personal best and improving her overall ranking to sixth. It has been a remarkable season for Ní Ríain who only made her international debut at the European championships in May.

As expected, Gia Pergolini from the United States dominated the race winning the gold medal as well as setting a new world record of 1:04.64

Cycling (track)

Galway’s Ronan Grimes produced his best ever performance in the C4 1000m Time Trial Final with a ride of 1:08.62 this morning.

Grimes shaved over a second off his personal best in the event and finished in 15th overall with Spain’s Cabello winning with a new World Record as Britain and Slovakia completed the medal positions.

Grimes was pleased with his performance and is now looking forward to the rest of the competition. “Nice to get the nerves out of the way, go through the warm up, get a feel of the track under speed and hopefully that’s good confidence for tomorrow so,” he said.

Earlier, Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal set new Irish records and personal bests in their B3 1000m time trial final.

The Irish pairing finished in a time of 1:09.044.

Larissa Klaassen of the Netherlands won the gold medal, with Great Britain's Aileen McGlynn taking silver and Belgium's Griet Hoet winning the bronze.

“We are really happy with our race, really happy with our result because we got a PB by 1.3 seconds and delighted with the race. We couldn’t have done any more, a PB is fantastic,” said Dunlevy.

McCrystal added: “Today was a nerve settler for us. It was really good to have it before the 3k, so that we could go through the warm, the procedure. All you can do on the day is go faster than you’ve gone before and I think it shows that we’ve got form, hopefully it will carry on to the next three events.”

Equestrian

First of the Irish to compete in the Equestrian Arena this morning will be Tamsin Addison and Rosemary Gaffney who will compete in the Grade V and Grade IV Individual Tests respectively.

Table Tennis

Colin Judge, who had been scheduled to compete today has been given a walk over into the next round following the withdrawal of his opponent, Welder Knaf from Brazil.

Judge will now have to wait until today’s action finishes before he knows who his opponent will be in the second round.