New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Torres wins bronze
Fairfield swimmer, Ansonia native takes third place in the 400-meter S8 freestyle
Matthew Torres, a current sophomore and swimmer for Fairfield University, won his first Paralympic medal on Tuesday, earning the bronze in the men’s 400-meter S8 freestyle final with a time of four minutes, 28.47 seconds.
“It was a pretty tiring and long race — definitely one of the longer races I’ve felt even though I’ve swum the 400(m) so many times,” Torres said following the final. “But it feels good to finally know that all the hard work over the last 13 years has paid off. And I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me along the way, whether it’s my parents, my coaches, my teammates, people just in the community overall, just supporting me.”
Torres began the final right behind lead swimmer Andrei Nikolaev from the Russian Olympic Committee. While Nikolaev led from start to finish, Torres was close behind, staying
within a second from the first 50-meter turn (30.53) to the 250-meter mark (2:44.35).
“I have actually studied Andrei Nikolaev’s swims a lot over the last few months, especially knowing that he is going to be one of the top contenders here in Tokyo,” Torres said. “I was just trying to study him and figure out his strategy overall as to how he races. I think as a person with one leg, I have relatively strong turns and I noticed that turns were also one of his weak spots.
“I was trying to take advantage of certain parts of that race to try and catch up. But Andrei put up a good fight and he beat me fair and square, and I am glad I had the chance to race him after watching him for several months now.”
However, it was at the wall for the 300-meter turn that Italy’s Alberto Amodeo passed Torres by over a second to push him to third place. Torres wasn’t able to sprint fast enough to beat Amodeo and reached the 350-mark almost two seconds behind him.
Torres kept his pace through the final 50 meters to finish in third and win his first Paralympic medal. Nikolaev won gold in 4:25.16 followed by Amodeo with silver in 4:25.93.
Torres, from Ansonia, will graduate Fairfield University in 2023 and still has at least two years of eligibility remaining to compete for the Stags’ swim team. In 2019, he won the 200-meter IM title at the World Para Swimming World Series and now the Fairfield Prep ’19 graduate has also made his mark at the Summer Games. With his bronzemedal finish on Tuesday, he becomes the second Fairfield University swimmer to medal during the 2020 games after Colleen Young (’20) won silver in the 200m Individual Medley on Monday.
The 400 free was Torres’ final event in Tokyo. The 20-year-old earned the top seed in the 400m S8 freestyle at the prelims on Monday with a time of 4:31.77.
Torres jumped out to a quick start in the prelim and kept the lead consistently throughout the 400 meters. At the halfway point, Torres began to separate himself even more from the other swimmers, reaching the 200-meter turn in 2:12.23 and three seconds ahead of the next closest swimmer.
In his second event in Tokyo, Torres finished heat one of the men’s 100-meter backstroke S8 in fifth place with a time of 1:14.03 on Thursday. Torres was the last swimmer of the heat to reach the 50-meter turn in 35.12 and because his final time was not one of the eighth fastest between the two heats, he did not qualify for the event’s final.
Torres opened his Paralympic debut on Aug. 24, with a third-place finish in heat two of the men’s 100meter S8 freestyle prelims.
He finished third in lane seven with a time of 1:01.35, however his time did not advance him to the event’s final. During the prelim race, Torres was the fifth swimmer to hit the first 50-meter turn (which he did at the 30-second mark) before speeding up in the final 10 meters to pass two swimmers and hit the wall in third behind China’s Xu Hauijiao in second (1.00.05) and Greece’s Diomsthenis Michalentzakis in first (59.49).