Ollie Hynd showed why he was tipped to be one of the stars of Rio 2016 when the ParalympicsGB swimmer broke his own world record by almost two seconds to claim gold in the S8 400m freestyle, while Jonnie Peacock can be confident of successfully defending his T44 100m title on Friday night after an impressive performance in his heat.
Peacock looked in good shape as he breezed away from the rest of the track in 10.81secs at the Olympic Stadium. Yet while the 23-year-old returned to the British camp to rest before going again in the final, Hynd was already celebrating.
The 21-year-old, who had to settle for silver in the 400m freestyle in London four years ago, dominated his final in a time of 4min 21.89sec.
“I don’t think there has been a day where I have not thought about London and how disappointed I was not to get the gold, so it makes it all worth it now,” Hynd said. “I’m so happy with the time. I wanted to go under 4min 20sec if I’m honest but a world record, I’m happy with that … I’ve worked so hard for that.”
There was further success for ParalympicsGB in the pool when Bethany Firth broke the world record in the S14 100m backstroke, clocking a time of 1min 4.05sec. The Northern Irish swimmer’s team-mate, Jessica-Jane Applegate, won bronze and Marlou van der Kulk of the Netherlands won silver.
“I’m so chuffed about that, I could not have done it without the support back home, they’ve all been behind me,” the 20-year-old said. “It’s not just my medal, it’s theirs as well.
“I’m quite a determined person. After breaking my wrist last year I had to come and watch the girls compete and that was hard to watch. But you can do whatever you put your mind to and I came back.”
Peacock will look to take that mentality into his 100m final. “I’m reasonably happy with the 10.81, it’s my second fastest time of the year so can’t ask for much more than that,” he said. “It felt relatively easy – I know I’m in great form coming here and that’s what this whole year is about. Look at my results, every month that goes by, the times go down. Tomorrow I hope to go a lot faster than that.”
However, Peacock thinks that he will need to run faster in the final. He will face strong challenges from the USA’s Jarryd Wallace and Germany’s Felix Streng, although Brazil’s Alan Oliveira failed to qualify.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sub-10.80 that takes silver or bronze,” Peacock said. “There are some really fast guys in the field here and it’s a good track and temperature.
“I was saying to my girlfriend Sally last night I’m not actually nervous yet which is pretty weird because every championships I get pretty nervous. This is the first time I’ve been completely chilled.
“It’s all about medals, not times. Everyone wants a fast time and I know I’m capable of a very fast time at the moment. Fingers crossed, if everything keeps going right, it should be nice and fast. But we’ve got the nice shiny medal in sight, so that’s the main thing.”
