More fourth-place frustration Streimikyte and Ireland at Paralympics
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Another fourth for Ireland in Paris. Another fourth at the Stade de France. Another fourth for Greta Streimikyte. A most frustrating stockpile.
Greta has known fourth-place frustration long before this Saturday and this summer. In her debut Paralympic Games eight years ago, Streimikyte was one place off the medals in the T13 1,500m. In Tokyo, she was fifth. At last year’s Worlds, she was fourth.
On this muggy Saturday evening in the French capital, she was back in that most unloved and lonely fourth spot.
It wasn’t, however, a near-miss fourth. Her European record time of 4:32.28 was nine seconds behind USA’s Liza Corso’s 4:23.45 bronze medal clocking. Clear separation and all that.
The gap to Corso, mind, did nothing to numb that familiar feeling of entrapment. Trapped away from the medal podium.
“Fourth, it is always a bit painful for me because it feels like I am just stuck in that fourth or fifth. But hopefully not too long more,” said the visually impaired 29-year-old.
She went through the first lap in second behind eventual gold medal winner Tigist Gezahagn Menigstu of Ethiopia. Swallowed up by the chasing pack thereafter, she had drifted back to sixth at 800m. It was, however, a pack she held onto for as long as the pace allowed.
Fifth at the bell, and with the three medalists out the gap by this juncture, she overtook Somaya Bousaid of Tunisia on the crown of the final bend to come up the home straight a distant and disappointed fourth.
There were tears. There always are with fourth. It doesn’t matter how close or not you are to the individual ahead of you.
“I didn’t really execute it maybe the way I wanted but then you have to think what is the best way to work around it. My plan was, similar to the Worlds in Paris last year, to take on the first lap to make sure it is not going to be too slow because that wouldn’t be beneficial for me,” she said.
“But the girl that led the race, she was brilliant and was actually taking it on so I was like, ‘Okay, I just need to latch on, have a bit of a gap but not too big of a gap to be able to close as strong as I could’.
“Then all the people kept coming in and I just had to remain focussed and just make sure I just had that bit for the last lap because you don’t know what can happen. I just tried to remain as strong as I could and was like, ‘Okay, my best shot now is to finish the last lap as strong as I could’.”
Her 4:32.28 was a European record, bettering her 4:33:27 from 12 months ago. It was not, however, a PB for Streimikyte. Her lifetime best of 4:29.33 was run outside of Paralympic competition at the 2021 AAI Games at Morton Stadium.
“If I could have gone 4:28, I would have been like, yes, that is a European record,” she said of wanting to do a best ever time here.
“This season wasn't the best I would have wanted. That this is my season's best just tells the numbers. I am happy that I was able to pull something out of the bag.” She pulled her fastest ever championship run out of the bag. It didn't change an all too familiar feeling.
“Tears all the time after the major championships.”
Sunday morning’s main Irish involvement is split between the triathlon at the Pont Alexandre III and the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome. The significance of the latter cannot be overstated.
In this their last Paralympic Games as a pairing, and with five Paralympic medals already in the front basket of their tandem bike, the curtain falls tomorrow on one of the most successful ever Irish sporting partnerships, that of Katie-George Dunlevy and pilot Eve McCrystal.
Both will compete on the road next week, but Dunlevy will be on the saddle behind Linda Kelly for both the road race and time trial, with McCrystal, in her last two events before retirement, piloting Josephine Healion.
Dunlevy and McCrystal’s 3,000m individual pursuit qualifying round begins at 10:26am. It is an event the pair won silver in three years ago in Tokyo.
The fastest two bikes in qualifying will come back on Sunday afternoon for the gold medal race, the third and fourth qualifiers lining up for the bronze medal race. Healion and Kelly are also in action in the same event.
Martin Gordon and Damien Vereker, and their respective pilots Eoin Mullen and Mitchell McLaughlin, go in the 1,000m time trial qualifying at 10am. The six fastest bikes progress to the final.
In the para triathlon, it will be an incredibly special morning for the MacCombe family as twin sisters Chloe and Judith compete in the PTVI triathlon. Chloe will be guided in the water, on the bike, and on foot by Catherine Sands, Eimear Nicholls leading Judith.
Cassie Cava’s PTS4 class is the last race, at 11.40am, on a busy morning of triathlon action.
The Shoreham-by-Sea native competed for Great Britain until 2017, switching allegiances the following year. These are her debut Games in green.
Enjoying a winning 2024. Cava, 32, was first across the line in the World series events at Devonport and Swansea. Both of those wins were in the PTS3 class. In Paris, she competes in the PTS4 class, which comprises the leading triathletes from the PTS3 and PTS4 classes.