Patrick O'Leary got the job done as he progressed in both of his canoeing heats in Tokyo overnight.
First up was the KL3 200m and he came home in a time of 43.502 seconds, which was good enough for fifth place, and 10th overall out of 14 competitors.
The Cork man was in Heat 1, alongside the medallists in this category from Rio, defending champion Serhii Yemelianov of Ukraine, Calo Ribeiro de Carvalho of Brazil and Britain's Tom Keiry.
And they would come home in that order, with Yemelianov's first place seeing him go straight through to Saturday's final.
O'Leary's semi in KL3 takes place on Friday morning at 2am.
Ninety minutes after he first appeared in the water, the NUIG chemistry lecturer was taking part in the new VL3 200m qualifiers in the Va'a discipline, a new event raced in a canoe with an outrigger and just one paddle, in which O'Leary is the reigning European champion.
A time of 54.470 saw him once again home in fifth, good enough to see him through to Saturday's semis.
Australia's Curtis McGrath won the heat, advancing straight to the final, ahead of Britain's Stuart Wood and Brazil's Giovane Vieira de Paula.
O'Leary's time was eighth quickest overall out of 13 participants.
Speaking afterwards, the 48-year-old said: "They were both good races. I got a really good race in the Va'a, had a bit of a wobble in the middle so that’s something to work on, but I got it back together again towards the end in a fairly stacked heat so I’m pretty happy with that.
"The KL3 was also stacked, but in some ways I’d prefer to have those guys in the heat because that means I’ll avoid them in the semi when I get the draw later on.
"It’s great to get those first races done because, generally speaking, I improve as regattas go on.
"Only the winners went straight through to the final so the stakes were relatively low and getting a hit out at no cost to me was really important.
"I have a better idea of where I am in the kayak and think I’ll be there or thereabouts in terms of making the A final.
"The problem with the Va’a is that there’s a lot of non-Europeans in them that we hadn’t seen yet this year and they were showing some style out there today. Just looking forward to the semi-finals now."
Follow all the action from the Paralympic Games with our coverage on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, watch live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player or listen to updates and live commentaries on RTÉ Radio.
