Poppy Maskill and Tully Kearney delivered a pair of glorious opening-night golds as ParalympicsGB began the Paris 2024 swimming programme in style - with Poppy also serving up a sensational world record in the process.
Maskill powered to a new world best mark of 1:03.00 to claim the Women's S14 100m Butterfly title on her Paralympic debut, serving up Britain's first gold of these Games, before a perfectly-paced swim from Kearney saw her to Women's S5 200m Freestyle glory in the final race of the evening at La Defense Arena. All of that came after Will Ellard swam to silver in the Men's S14 100m Butterfly showpiece to kickstart his Games debut in fine fashion.
On a night of memorable performances, Maskill was left reflecting on an "unreal" moment that brought her a maiden Paralympic gold at the first time of asking. She had secured lane four after a strong swim in the morning heats - and then followed that up by exploding down the opening 50m and building a lead at the turn.
Well ahead of the existing world record mark with 25m to go, the Manchester Performance Centre competitor held on well in the closing strokes to claim the new record and register ParalympicsGB's first gold of Paris 2024.
Behind her, Olivia Newman-Baronius put in an impressive effort in her first final at this level, closing well to narrowly miss out on the podium in fourth, while Louise Fiddes was sixth at the end of a race that saw three GB racers in the finale.
Reflecting on her golden triumph, Maskill said: "That was so hard. I was just trying my hardest and seeing how I could do compared to this morning. Winning and breaking the world record, it is weird, it is really cool. It is unreal!
"This also gives me more confidence and we'll see what happens [for the rest of the meet]. It's great because my mum, my dad, my sisters and my nan are here - I'll ring my mum and dad after this."
Poppy's golden success was followed later on by a race of redemption for Kearney, who followed silver in the Women's S5 200m Freestyle in Tokyo by powering to gold in Paris.
Racing in lane four as fastest seed, Kearney was involved in an intriguing battle with Ukraine's Iryna Poida throughout the contest. Indeed, Poida led at each turn heading to the 150m mark, when Tully executed a superb turn that brought her up into the lead - and that was an advantage she was unwilling to relinquish, powerful strokes down the final 50m taking her to the wall just more than half-a-second ahead of the Ukrainian to cap an incredible race and a brilliant title-winning moment for the two-time Paralympian, who was touched out in the final stroke of the final three years ago.
"I'm a bit speechless, to be honest. I really wanted redemption after Tokyo in that event, I really wanted to go and get gold - I didn't want a silver again, I didn't want bronze. But I didn't know if that would be possible, so I'm really happy with that," she said.
"I knew what my strength and weaknesses were in that race, I used that to my advantage and it obviously worked. I have been competing internationally since I was 13 and I've never had a crowd this big! It was incredible and really helped."
The first swimming medal of the meet was served up by another ParalympicsGB debutant in Will Ellard. Twelve months on from his senior international debut at the 2023 Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester, Will lined up as fastest seed for the Men's S14 100m Butterfly final.
Like Maskill a few minutes later, Ellard went out hard from the gun, taking an early lead and maintaining that position well into the final lap. On this occasion, Denmark's Alexander Hillhouse closed on him in the final 25m and went over the top of him with just 10m to go to ultimately claim gold, while Will - in a new personal best of 54.86 - took home a fantastic silver. Cameron Vearncombe, also on his Paralympic debut, was eighth in the final.
"I didn't think I'd be happy with the silver medal, but after I finished, seeing that Alexander had won the gold - I'm really good friends with him, he came over after our Paralympic trials in April - seeing him win the gold and then me get the silver, that was good," he said.
"I've still got my main event, the 200m Freestyle, coming up on Saturday. It's definitely given me big confidence going into that, doing a PB on the 100m Butterfly. It definitely gives me confidence to strive for that gold in the freestyle, the fitness on that 200m Free should be good, and then it's trusting my coach here and the work we've been doing at home.
"It was a big thing for the team seeing Poppy do that afterwards. It's a PB for her too, I know she'll be really happy with that."
At the start of the night, Toni Shaw placed fifth in the final of the Women's S9 400m Freestyle. The University of Aberdeen swimmer, who claimed bronze in the event back in Tokyo, dropped good time from heats to final and moved through the field over the final 100m to secure that top-five finish.
"I was injured at the start of the year, so just being here is really special. It wasn't the race I wanted, but I guess I was in a Paralympic final, so I've still got to be happy with that. When I finished my race, I saw some of my family in the crowd, and without them, I wouldn't be here - so that was super special seeing them, and all the support they've given means the world to me," she said.
Tomorrow's action (Friday 30th August) begins with Kearney looking to follow up her stunning 200m Freestyle triumph as she bids to defend her S5 100m Freestyle crown, with Suzanna Hext also involved in that one. Among other races, reigning Women's SM6 200m Individual Medley champion Maisie Summers-Newton goes in that one, alongside Grace Harvey, while Scarlett and Eliza Humphrey are in Women's S11 400m Freestyle action. Heats get underway from 8.30am BST on Channel 4.
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