William Ellard wins first Paralympic gold in record breaking style

Teenager William Ellard was crowned Paralympic champion after setting a new world record time in the Men’s S14 200m Freestyle final.

Ellard, who was already the joint world record holder after his effort at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships in April, went out quickly and never looked back as he held off the charge of Canada’s Nicholas Bennett.

The St Felix Swimming Club member led from start to finish as he clocked a time of 1:51.30, more than two seconds ahead of Bennett – who had qualified fastest from the heats earlier in the day.

An electric Ellard split 53.88 for his first 100m’s but Bennett began to claw back the gap on the third length until the Brit kicked on and pulled clear of the field to take the gold in some style.

It gave the Beccles based athlete his first Paralympic gold at his debut Games, adding to his superb silver in the 100m butterfly on the opening night.

After the race he admitted that he felt the nerves going into the race but was delighted to come away with gold in his favoured event.

He said: “That’s probably the most nervous I’ve ever been going into a race.

“I went out quite quickly, but it didn’t feel quick at all. It just hits you that second 100m, hits you like a brick wall. That’s the adrenaline going which I learnt from the 100m butterfly the other day.

“I had Alexander (Hillhouse of Denmark who won the 100m butterfly) come over and congratulate me. Everyone knows how much that means to me and how much I’ve been training for that with my coach.”

‘I’m going to have to go now or I’ll regret it’

When asked if he knew where Bennett was and the battle with him, Ellard said: “yeah I had a look.

“I saw him before the 150m mark because I breathed to my right. I saw him coming back at me and I was like ‘I’m going to have to go now or I’m going to regret that for the rest of my life’.

“I just pushed along and I think there’s more in there but it just got to me in my head ‘what am I going to do when I win’ because I knew I’d won in that last 25m’s and in the last 10 I was just spinning my arms.”

The time knocked more than a second off his and fellow Brit Reece Dunn’s record time and Ellard’s already thinking about improving that time further.

“It does hurt a lot, everyone says with my stroke rate I make it look easy but I’ve been working on that with Nick (Thompson – his coach) and you can never make it look hard.

“I’ll try and do more sessions next year and try and get under 1:50.00 hopefully.”

Ellard’s not done yet at Paris 2024 as he still has two more events at this year’s Games with both the 100m backstroke and the 200m individual medley coming up for him later in the week.