Paralympics: Kerrie Leonard keeps her eye on the prize as she faces tense eliminator

Kerrie Leonard will face 2016 Paralympic gold medallist archer Jiamin Zhou in a head-to-head eliminator in the W2 Individual Compound on Friday after a score of 653 in the qualifier on Thursday.
Leonard finished 21st in the seedings of the 28 archers after the qualifying round – with her score of 653 not far off her season’s best of 662.
Zhou was 12th in the qualifiers with a score of 676, but Leonard entered the Paralympics with a higher ranking of 34th to Zhou’s 45th. The highest possible tally for archers to post from 72 arrows in 720
“I’m coming in here quite positively,” said the Meath native afterwards. “It is down on my season’s best, I wanted to do better but I found myself carrying a lot of tension during the first portion of the competition.
“I personally prefer the head-to-heads and hopefully that will show tomorrow. When you’re head-to-head with somebody, it’s me and against you. You can see the whites of their eyes.”
In Para Cycling track action, Richael Timothy finished seventh in the C1-3 3000m women’s Individual Pursuit final, having recorded a personal best of 4:05.247 in her heat.
On a day which was also a special one for her daughter’s, Timothy said: “It’s Lucie’s first birthday today so we planned it perfectly, you could say. I suppose I missed a bit of track time this year, I’m just so happy to have done a PB, that was my goal.”
Team Ireland also had two representatives in the qualifying round for men’s B 4,000m Individual Pursuit.
Damien Vereker, piloted by Mitchell McLaughlin, not only set a new personal best but also a new national record with a time of 4:14.817, which saw them finish in seventh place overall.
“I’m just over the moon, I never expected that time to be honest,” stated Vereker. “You might get a three second PB but to get a six second PB! We got the perfect momentum from the start, just kept it going all the way around.”
Martin Gordon, piloted by Eoin Mullen, used the event as a warm-up ahead of their primary event – the Men’s B 1,000m Time Trial, which will take place on Sunday. The pair finished in a time of 5:27.654 for 12th place.