AN ECSTATIC Nicole Turner said “it hasn’t sunk in at all” after earning a silver medal in the final of the S6 50m butterfly at the Paralympic Games today.
The 19-year-old said the experience of her first Paralympics at Rio 2016, where she narrowly missed out on a medal, with her best placing fifth in the 50m Butterfly, ultimately drove her to today’s success.
“Coming into Tokyo and looking back on Rio, being so close to that bronze medal, the aim after Rio was to just get on the podium at Tokyo,” she told RTÉ.
“I never in a million years thought it would be silver. I always thought it would be a fight for bronze.
“I think I was shaking before the race even started. But the past five years have been pretty challenging, I suppose the extra year did do me justice.”
She continued: “Especially within the past two years even, World Championships I was bronze medal but because of the way para-swimming works, people can come up and down in classifications, and there are new people in there.
“Even coming into the thing, I aimed high to get a medal, but to reach the podium there now with the competitiveness in there, it’s not sunk in.”
Turner went on to pay tribute to some of the people who helped make her success possible.
“It’s not just for me,” she explained. “I’m only going to name as a collective, three special people. My coach Dave Malone has given up every hour of the day to come in at all sorts of times to train me. My S and C [strength and conditioning] coach Niamh Buffini took me one-to-one for the past two years now. And my mam and dad. My dad has a full-time job, but my mam is the one that drives me to and from training every day. So without her, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
She then concluded: “It feels like a dream come true. This is honestly the best day of my life. To even get to Tokyo this year, but to be on the podium with a silver medal, it’s for everyone at home, it’s not for me.”
An overjoyed Nicole Turner was shaking with excitement as she spoke to @Darrenfrehill about her brilliant silver medal swim https://t.co/WnFPRxuuVq #rtesport #paralympics #paraswimming pic.twitter.com/t1l0aTCVo5
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 30, 2021
He is one of the better keepers in Loi. The fai are long overdue to address the problem of players being out of work when they finish playing ?a pension trust for players should be in place for a time in their career , maybe kick in at 35 years old ? And the clubs should be made subsidise this payment also ? I know the argument for clubs is they are struggling , but this plan with the main body and clubs should be in place imo. The players also can contribute some payment to the fund .
Paying people a pension when finishing work at 35?
@Robert O’Rourke: saving the tax payer also , not many sportspeople over 35 . And if those people were lucky to get a job , after various courses , then they would be taxpayers also .
@Tricksy: Why should they get special treatment just because they’re sport stars though. I’d like quit my job at 35 and have a pension waiting for me. Maybe a back to education scheme but not a pension.
@Robert O’Rourke: A few people have suggested I retire at 35 and even before that but I know they are only joking regardless of the Mayhem all around me .
@Robert O’Rourke: employer s are not inclined to employ some one in their thirties who never had a previous job ! And by the time they do a few unemployment courses they are older also . So these ex players are getting a welfare payment more than likely from a person like yourself (tax payer) who is in employment from young age , but had no talent to play a sport !
@Tricksy: Not sure how we’re supposed to sympathise here. They have plenty of time to do courses while they’re footballers if they have any small bit of drive or maturity at all about themselves. See the amount of young Irish professional rugby players who are currently doing degrees? Also, employers have no issue taking on people in their 30s with several decades left in their careers. You’d swear they were in their late 50s!