Top Aussie start after swimming gold rush
THE Australian pool party at Tokyo’s Aquatic Centre has started up again.
Following in the slipstream of Australia’s record-breaking Olympic swimmers, the national Paralympic team took winning to a new level on the first night in the pool – picking up eight medals, including four golds, on Wednesday.
The gold tally was almost half as many golds as the Dolphins won during the entire Olympic swimming program but the big difference this time is that it is Australia’s men providing the lion’s share.
Will Martin (400m freestyle), Ben Popham (100m freestyle) and Rowan Crothers (50m freestyle) all made it to the top step of the podium.
So did Lakeisha Patterson, who won the women’s 400m freestyle gold by a fingernail after a lung-bursting final-lap battle with Hungary’s Zsofia Konkoly that she said left her “feeling more fried than a chook from KFC”.
Patterson won six medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics when she was still a teenager competing in the S8 category but has only entered two races in Tokyo, including a relay, after being reclassified as an S9 swimmer.
“It’s been a tough couple of years. I’ve gone through changes of classes,” said Patterson, who competes as an athlete with cerebral palsy after a stroke at birth.
“I’m competing up now, compared to what I was in Rio.
“Unfortunately I wasn’t selected to swim the 100m freestyle even though I would have liked to but I was still able to give it everything I had in this 400m freestyle.”
Patterson’s victory came just moments after Martin’s shock win in the men’s S9 400m freestyle, an event he never even considered racing until after he had been picked in the team as a butterfly swimmer.,