MONDAY THIS week marked 100 days until the start of the 2024 Paralympic Games.

Ireland’s Nicole Turner will be one of an estimated 4,400 athletes competing in 549 medal events across 22 sports between 28 August and 8 September.

It has come around more quickly than usual, given that the 2020 Games took place in 2021 for Covid-related reasons, disrupting the normal four-year cycle between events.

While acknowledging the work ahead, Turner is “happy where I am,” particularly after winning multiple medals at the Para Swimming European Championships in Madeira, Portugal last month.

Currently undertaking a sports management degree on a scholarship at TU Dublin, Turner had been studying full-time up until December but her college commitments have now been reduced to three hours a week, so she no longer gets “stressed out” about having to stay up until 11pm studying ahead of a gruelling day of swimming training.

She is only 21 but it will be Turner’s third Paralympics. The Portarlington native was just 14 when she competed in Rio 2016, so she is a relative veteran now.

Turner was the youngest member of the team when she joined in 2015 right up until 2021 when Róisín Ní Ríain (19) came on board for the Tokyo Games.

Now, she is the third oldest and dispenses advice to the youngsters.

“When I was 14, I didn’t realise how big of a deal it was,” she says. “Even everyone around me, the likes of Ellen Keane, when I was in Rio, she was 21.

“So she was my age now in Rio. And she was getting nervous. She was thinking about her race. She needed time on her own to process the race.

“I didn’t understand that, I was just like: ‘Ellen, go and enjoy yourself.’ Whereas now I’m 21 and I totally get where she was coming from.”

Already, Turner is a Paralympic medallist. She finished second in the Women’s 50-metre butterfly S6 final to secure a silver medal in Tokyo.

She knows fans expect similar brilliance this time, but insists “I’m not putting pressure on myself”.

She continues: “Winning silver in Tokyo was amazing. But I think it’s hard being at the top and staying at the top. Rather than being at the bottom and getting to the top.

“I want to do a lifetime best performance, whatever comes after that is a bonus.

“But I want to go out and enjoy Paris. It’ll be nice and different to Tokyo — my family and friends will be there. There will be a crowd, and an atmosphere, and there won’t be a million and one [Covid] restrictions in place.”

When asked who she sees as her biggest rivals, Turner lists USA’s Elizabeth Marks, Chinese swimmer Jiang Yuyan and Verena Schott of Germany.

All three are “lovely girls” while being familiar sporting foes.

They each competed in Tokyo. Yuyan took gold in the 50-metre butterfly S6, while Marks and Schott were behind Turner in third and fourth.

The Irish star doesn’t get many opportunities to study her rivals though.

“Other than them competing at maybe one event in the year, you don’t know where they are. So you have to focus on yourself being the best. And then if they’re better than you on the day, you have to accept that.”

She adds: “I did feel the pressure in Tokyo. And I think pressure is good. It shows the amount we care for a sport. So you have to use the nerves as fuel and bring them with your best.

“So it is nerve-wracking, but I want to enjoy the experience. And people always do remind me I’m more than just a swimmer.

“So swimming is a big part of my life but not my whole life. So I’ll go out and enjoy it, perform at my best and then see what comes after that.”

PTSB ambassador, Nicole Turner was speaking to media marking 100 days to go to the Paralympic Games in Paris. PTSB are proud title partner of both the Irish Olympic and Paralympic teams.