All eyes were on the Ellie Clasico in the Aquatics Centre on Tuesday night. Until the S6 400m freestyle final began, that is. Ellie Simmonds’s defence of her title came to an unhappyend when Yelyzaveta Mereshko won gold at a canter, while Ellie Robinson was pushed into fourth place by her older team-mate.
Inspired to take up swimming after watching Simmonds in London four years ago, Robinson has been one of the breakthrough stars of these Games. The 15-year-old has the same condition as Simmonds, Achondroplasia dwarfism, and she caused a stir by winning S6 50m butterfly gold last Friday, while Simmonds made swimming history by becoming the first SM6 swimmer to race below three minutes in the 200m medley on Monday night.
Robinson was in the pool with Simmonds a day later and finishing fourth to the five-time Paralympic champion’s sixth in the S6 50m freestyle final was a surprise given that the youngster spent most of the race pinching herself.
The stage was set for the S6 400m freestyle final on Tuesday night when Simmonds and Robinson qualified third and fourth fastest respectively after being placed in the same heat. Yet Mereshko, the world record holder, showed why she was the favourite by streaking away in 5min 17.01sec. China’s Lingling Song took silver in 5min 21.37sec and Simmonds was unhappy with bronze in 5min 24.87sec. This was billed as her strongest event, the one in which she made her name in Beijing eight years ago.
“I had a great warm-up and then I don’t know to be honest, I had been on really good form,” Simmonds, who has two events left, said. “It’s not good.”
In the end the highlight for ParalympicsGB came when Stephanie Millward won the women’s S8 100m backstroke final in 1min 13.02sec. “It’s amazing, three Paralympic Games, 18 years of multiple sclerosis and here I am with that gold medal I’ve been striving for,” the 34-year-old said. “I wrote a poem ages ago called MS My War about how we have to keep on striving for winning the war and I think that swim has just won that war.”
Millward’s victory was preceded by Ollie Hynd winning silver in the men’s version of the race. China’s Zhou Cong won gold with a world record of 1min 2.90sec.
Robinson finished fourth but she has enjoyed herself in Rio. The teenager made headlines with her nonchalant entrance before the 50m butterfly, strutting into view looking like she owned the place in her black hooded robe.
“I saw the reaction from it and people quite liked it, so I was like ‘I can go with this’,” she said. “The story behind it was I was going to wave and put my hands up and just say hi to everyone. I forgot I had a really tight suit, a jumper, a dry robe and a drawstring bag. I could only get my arms to halfway and I was like ’okay, we’ll just deal with this’.”
Some people never get the chance to meet their heroes. Some end up disappointed when they do. There was no chance of Simmonds letting Robinson down. They make quite the double act. They were side by side after the morning heats, explaining how confusion strikes whenever someone says their name. “We both look round, don’t we?” Simmonds said. Robinson replied: “Yes, it’s like Ellie’ – and it’s like ‘oh, the other one’.” On it went. “Ellie S and Ellie R,” Simmonds said. “People call me Simmondsio or El. We’re just Ellie, aren’t we?”
They certainly are.
