Nicole Turner finished seventh in the 50m freestyle final at the Paralympic Games on Saturday night.

The 14-year-old qualified as the seventh fastest swimmer in the final, and that's where she finished as Ukraine's  Yelyzaveta Mereshk took the gold in a Paralympic record ahead of her compatriot Viktoria Savstova and Australian Tiffany Thomas Kane.

Turner had made it through with a fine performance in the heats of the 50m freestyle.

The Portarlington swimmer finished second in the first of three heats in 36.70 seconds behind Thomas Kane, and then had to wait for the remaining races to be sure her time was good enough to reach tonight's final.

Mereshko set a Paralympic record of 33.53 to top the rankings ahead of compatriot and world record holder Vikoriia Savstova. That record didn;t last long though, as Mereshko raised the bar again.

“I was really happy with that swim. This morning I came out tired but now I know I did my best because it was a good time," Turner said afterwards.

Turner came in behind Britain’s Eleanor Symmonds, an athlete she admits she has always admired and now hopes to emulate with another “two or three” Paralympic Games.

“The likes of Ellie Simmons, I used to look up to her,” she continued. “So it’s kind of weird now that I’m competing against her.”

“The swim was really good. At 50 it will either go really good for you or really bad for you because it’s that fast you can’t really gauge it, but that went really good so I’m really happy.”

Turner has three more events to look forward to, with the 100m Breaststroke her favoured event still to come.