PARALYMPICS: At 16 Claire Conway has little need to fret over the fact that her Paralympics for 2004 are over. While her debut in the heats of the women's 100 metres butterfly-S9 event was overshadowed by the shattering of the world record by South Africa's Natalie du Toit, Conway delighted the Irish team by beating her own personal best time by a second and a half.
Swimming in an outside lane in the third heat of her event yesterday morning, Conway lowered her entry time of 1:25.66 seconds to 1:24.37 seconds.
The distance between de Toit's mark of 1:07.69 seconds and Conway's is a considerable gap to bridge and given that world records are falling regularly as paralympic sport becomes more streamlined and competitive, it's highly probable she will have to set her sights even beyond the South African's record if she is ever to win a medal. But Conway and the team, realists at heart but optimists in the field of play, were upbeat.
"I can't believe it. I targeted a PB but a second and a half under was just a bonus," she said. "It definitely encourages me. I'll be 17 in October so there's plenty of time. It has inspired me to do better things (for Beijing) and keep up the training and hopefully be back as medal potential in the future."
On dry land, in the Olympic Hockey Stadium, the Irish seven-a-side footballers found world champions Ukraine too experienced and went down 6-0 in their first outing.
A young side, they are now banking on two strong performances against their pool opponents Argentina and Iran, who drew 2-2 in their first match yesterday. Tomorrow's match against Argentina will indicate if Ireland are still in a position to advance from the pool stage.
In the other Irish events yesterday Tony White was disappointed after a year of hard work when he went out of the B1 81kg Judo contest, succumbing to an Ippo after just 10 seconds against eventual gold medal winner France's Cyril Jonard.
Back on the water, skipper John Twomey, Brian O'Mahony and Sean McGrath in the Sonar class boat realistically have gold, silver or bronze barely within reach as Ireland sit in ninth place overall after four races. In the fourth race yesterday, the three found their form, when the boat came in third. But following an overall 10th place on Saturday and another 10th in the first outing yesterday, the crew would need to be rattling off top three finishes in their remaining five sails.
"Overall the points are quite close. There are only seven points between us and sixth place and 13 points between us and third place," said coach Amanda Wallace. "Unfortunately they were on the wrong side of a 100 degree wind shift when they were well in the top three. That was a massive shift and changed the dynamics of the race. But we were very happy with the boat speed, happy it was out there at a competitive level and also the discard will kick in now after the fifth race, so one of the 10th places will go."
