Irish Paralympic gold medalist Ellen Keane believes that a mishap with her goggles may have helped her to glory in the her SB8 100m breaststroke final in Tokyo.

Keane swam the race of her life to beat 16-time Paralympic medallist Sophie Pascoe in the final, edging out the New Zealand Paralympic legend by .39 of a second.

Clontarf swimmer Keane trailed Pascoe in the early stages but produced a stirring fightback in the second half of the race to overhaul Pascoe and take the gold.

While Keane claimed that sticking to her gameplan was the reason behind her success, she admitted that she may have been aided by her goggles filling up as soon as she dived in at the start of the race.

"I don't think it's fully sunk in yet," she told RTÉ Sport. "When I dove in my goggles filled up with water but I think that was maybe a good thing because I couldn't see where the girls were around me.

"Just on the turn I saw Sophie a little bit but I just had a gameplan in mind and I stuck to that.

"The last thing my coach said before I went in was 'if I need to push you in a wheelchair home, I want those legs wrecked' and that’s exactly what I did.

"I tend to rush my stroke when I’m trying to go fast. I’m a strong person and if I start to rush my stroke I actually don’t get any power from my legs, so it was more about being long and strong and in control.

Keane also revealed that she believes she benefitted from the year long delay to the Paralympics, which were pushed back a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I took a break from social media because I felt it was distracting me a bit and even going online I felt the nerves creeping in," she said.

"For these games I wanted to be as present as possible and that’s really what I’ve been doing.

"I think these are the first games where I’ve not been nervous, I’ve been so calm. Even last night I was a little bit worried as to how calm I was.

"But then this morning for the heats I was nervous again and for the final I was calm again. I think I just knew that I was capable of doing something great and it was just about trusting that.

"I’m nearly glad that the games were postponed because I’ve had that time to work on myself. I usually get really nervous going to competitions but I think in the past 18 months I’ve learned to trust myself and that’s what’s happened here today."

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