Smyth eases his way into 200m final

PARALYMPIC GAMES:ON A quiet day for the Irish Paralympic team, Jason Smyth sailed through to tonight's T13 200m final with a suitably confident victory in his heat.

The Derry sprinter qualified with a time of 21.48, the only man in the field to go under 22 seconds. “I know I’m in good shape,” he said afterwards. “I wanted to go under the world record. The main thing is I am in the final. I haven’t seen any of the other times but the run gives me confidence going in to tomorrow’s final.”

At Brands Hatch, Dubliner Cathal Miller finished 14th in the C5 road race, a fine result given the level of opposition. “I was delighted to finish in 14th place. That is in the top 40 per cent in the race, not bad against professional riders like Yegor Dementyev and Michael Gallagher.

“That was my best road race to date. I’m racing against professional riders out there. The likes of Carol-Eduard Novak won the Tour of Romandy recently.”

In the pool, Ellen Keane followed up her S9 100m butterfly final appearance with another good swim to make the final of the 200m individual medley. She went out fast and lay in third place after 100m before eventually fading into seventh. Her best event comes tomorrow in the 100m breaststroke, in which she finished sixth in Beijing.

The final day of sailing for John Twomey, Anthony Hegarty and Ian Costelloe in the Sonar class came and went without any further racing. All action was cancelled due to lack of wind, an issue which had plagued the regatta. The Irish sailors finished 11th overall.

Finally, Irish involvement in the Boccia tournament ended when Johnny Cronin lost 7-1 to Singapore’s Nurul Binte.