13-year-old Iona Winnifrith takes historic silver to complete day eight

A historic silver for Iona Winnifrith was one of the highlights of day eight in the pool for ParalympicsGB at Paris 2024.

The 13-year-old star became the youngest British Paralympic medallist this century with her Women’s SB7 100m Breaststroke silver on Thursday.

Her medal in the opening race of day eight’s finals session coupled with golds from Rebecca Redfern and Alice Tai took ParalympicsGB’s swimming medal tally to 26 with still two more days to go.

But it was Winnifrith who got the nation off to an incredible start with an excellent performance where only a world record effort could stop her taking her title.

The Tonbridge Swimming Club youngster qualified second fastest and got off the blocks well at La Defense Arena.

In just her second Paralympic final, Winnifrith was already in second place at the 50m mark and then motored on towards the wall to finish comfortably ahead of the rest of the chasing pack.

She clocked in with a time of 1:29.69 which broke her own British record from the European Championships earlier this year – taking 0.22 off her previous best.

Only Neutral Paralympic Athlete Mariia Pavlova could defeat the 13-year-old by breaking her own record to finish in 1:26.09 to take the title.

And winning a Paralympic silver is something that Winnifrith thought was ‘really cool’.

She said: “It’s really cool, I was excited going into this race so I’m really happy.

“I spoke with my coach (and the plan was) just try and keep up with the girls all the way through and then power it through the last length.

“I knew that I just needed to fight and just power off and do what I needed to do.

“Of course I really wanted that gold but you can’t have everything. I’m 13 so pretty young and I’m super, super happy with that performance.

“I’m just really proud and now I’ve literally just got my 50 fly for a bit of fun and then I can just relax and enjoy it and I’m just really happy.”

She was also asked what it will be like going back to school and showing her friends her Paralympic medal.

“They’ll be like it’s mad. They’ll be so proud and some of them have been on this journey with me. My teachers have all believed in me so I’m really happy.

“The whole team here have supported me. Everyone’s like a big supportive family, we all support each other. Over the three weeks that we come here you really do become a family. You train together, we live together and being away from home for three weeks is hard.

“So you have to be a big family whatever age you are.”

Scarlett ends debut Games with sixth

Scarlett Humphrey rounded out her debut Paralympic Games with sixth place in the Women’s SB11 100m Breaststroke final.

The event marked a fifth final for Humphrey who has had the honour of competing alongside her twin sister Eliza in a number of events as the duo became ParalympicsGB’s first S11 swimmers in more than 15 years.

She finished the race in a time of 1:30.61, putting in another strong swim to win out a close battle with China’s Liwen Cai.

Speaking after the race she was happy with her performance and admitted she has learnt a lot from her debut Games which she can take forward for the future.

She said: “I’m struggling a bit with my breaststroke at the moment but it was a bit quicker than this morning so I’m happy with that.

“I think some of the processes from this morning that I wanted to improve on went better. Staying straighter in the lane so I’m happy with that.

“One thing that I’ve taken away is how much I enjoy racing against the other athletes and how I can compete against them and I can take that with me into next season.

“Just to keep working hard because if I keep improving myself in the little areas where I can improve then I can challenge higher up the rankings and try to maybe challenge for the medals next time around.”

Rogers and Shaw both in top five

Two Scots completed the night of action for ParalympicsGB with Toni Shaw narrowly missing out on the podium and Faye Rogers putting in a strong performance.

Starting with Shaw, who was just 0.24 off the bronze medal in the Women’s SM9 200m Individual Medley.

She swam a strong and composed race, holding fourth spot for the majority before putting in a challenge for a medal late on.

A strong freestyle leg put her right on terms with Spain’s Anastasyia Dmytriv Dmytriv but the Spaniard just held on despite Shaw setting a seasons best of 2:37.88.

Rogers meanwhile had to settle for fifth in the Women’s S10 400m Freestyle final after her gold in the 100m butterfly earlier this week.

The Paralympic debutant just couldn’t keep with the leading pack, touching in 4:41.50 but was still proud of her display.

She said: “Some incredible girls in that race, I said that in the heats. It’s good to see that the class is getting more and more competitive.

“And I couldn’t be prouder to swim in a race that competitive, it’s insane. It’s pushing me on, it’s making me faster.

“I’m a little bit disappointed with the time, I’ve been training better than that although this event wasn’t one I’ve been really targeting. It is what it is, I gave it my all, it hurt a lot and I can’t ask for much more.

“I’m a racer, I really struggle with swimming with the people around me and I need to work on racing my own race I think.

“In some situations it helps, it definitely pushes me on but in a 400 you’ve got to stick to your own game plan or you’re not going to get to the end but that’s something I’m working on.

“I said this morning that was something I was struggling with in the 100 butterfly and again I could’ve gone a bit faster if I just swam my own race but it’s good to have something to work on.”