SWIMMING 100m BUTTERFLY:ELLEN KEANE finished seventh in the S9 100m Butterfly in the Aquatic Centre last night, a creditable result in an event she wouldn't class as her best hope of the week. Keane, a 17-year-old amputee from Clontarf, was beaten by a top quality field.

The race was won by arguably the most famous amputee swimmer at the Paralympic Games, South Africa’s Natalie Du Toit, here winning the 100m butterfly for the third Paralympics in a row. It took her haul of Paralympic medals to 12, a tally she will certainly add to as the week progresses.

Keane had done well just to qualify for the final as her main focus for the games is the breaststroke. She came fourth in her heat during the morning session, a time that was good enough to make her the fifth fastest qualifier. Du Toit won the other heat by almost four seconds and Keane’s time would have been good enough to come second in that race.

She never got into the mix in the final last night, however, and actually swam almost a second slower than she had in the morning. The rest of the field got out well ahead of her and though she made good progress around the turn, she faded the further the race went on.

Seventh place was no disgrace, as ahead of her were Du Toit (the greatest swimmer the event has ever known), Sarai Gascon of Spain (who set a European record) and Elizabeth Stone of the USA (who set an American record in coming third).

Even the fourth-placed swimmer Elie Cole of Australia set an Oceanic record on her way to fourth place. In that sport of company, Keane was never going to push for much better than what she recorded.

“It wasn’t as good as I was hoping for,” she said afterwards. “But I can’t complain. I gave it my all and it hurt a lot more than this morning. But I was so happy with the race this morning. I’m looking forward now to seeing Beth and the guys competing. They have all been training really well over the last few weeks and it’s been really exciting to watch them. I can’t wait to see them race.”