Nicole Turner won Ireland's second medal at the World Para Allianz European Swimming championship when she claimed silver in the women's 50 metres Butterfly S6 at the National Aquatic Centre.
The 16-year-old from Portarlington added to Ellen Keane’s bronze in the 200 Individual Medley.
Ireland had gone all week without a medal at the meet before Keane's bronze on Friday night. Now Turner has added to that with a great performance.
The teenager, who also swam at the Rio Olympics two years ago, kept her 100% record of qualifying for finals, finished second in her heat this morning.
Her time of 37.04 seconds in her favourite event saw her qualify second fastest for the final and she had the world record holder Britian’s Elenor Robinson and Oksana Khrul to contend with in the decider.
Turner had already finished an unwanted fourth in the 100m Breaststroke SB6 Final this week, but she had targeted winning a medal in the 50m fly as she was ranked number 3 in Europe before the final.
Robinson and Khrul held the 1-2 at the 25 metre mark, but Turner closed fast and in the final 10 metres. The teenager powered past Khrul and into silver as the world-record holder Robinson the world record holder took gold.
Turner will conclude her championships with the heats of the 100m freestyle on Sunday at the NAC.
Meath’s James Scully made his second final of the championships in the Men’s 100m Freestyle S5. Finishing 4th in his heat, he qualified seventh fastest for tonight’s final which was the first race of the evening session at 6 o’clock.
In the end Scully had to be content with seventh and his time of 1.21.86 was a new personal best in a race won by the Italian Antonio Fantin in a new world record time of 1.07.70.
In his final event of the championships, Barry McClements finished fifth fastest in heat 1 of the Men’s 400m Freestyle S9 event. His time was good enough for eighth and final spot in tonight’s final and will be delighted to have lowered his personal best by over two seconds.
Sean O'Riordan finished fifth in his heat of the Men’s 100m Freestyle S13 event, missing out of qualifying for tonight’s final.
The race was won by Great Britain's Eleanor Robbinson in 35.37, who had more than a second to spare over the Irish swimmer. Oksana Khrul of Ukraine was third.
