2024 Paris Paralympic Games Moreton Bay coverage: Patterson, Betar in action

Photo above: Swimming Australia/Delly Carr

Moreton Bay’s Lakeisha Patterson and Ricky Betar have competed in the swimming heats at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games this evening (AEST).

Morayfield’s Ricky Betar has qualified second fastest for the men’s 200m IM SM14 finals.

Racing from lane 3, Betar burst off the blocks to take the lead in the first leg (butterfly) and powered through the turn to lead the field by almost a body length in the second leg (backstroke).

He slowed slightly, which allowed world record holder Canadian Nicholas Bennett to grab the lead and hold onto it in the breaststroke and freestyle legs.

Betar did well to stay with Bennett and appeared to still have plenty in the tank as he finished the race with a time of 1:00.69. Bennett’s time was 1:03.01.

The stage is set for a mighty battle in the final at 1.42am (AEST) on Thursday, September 4.

Betar, who is autistic, is currently ranked sixth in the world in this event.

Paris is his second Paralympics. In Tokyo three years ago, he won a silver medal with Australia’s mixed 4x100m freestyle relay S14 team.

In Tokyo he also qualified for the finals in the 200m freestyle S14 and 100m butterfly S14 and finished seventh and eighth respectively.

In the lead-up to the Paris Games, Betar was training twice daily at UniSC on the Sunshine Coast, under Paralympic Hub head coach Harley Connolly.

Caboolture’s Lakeisha Patterson did not qualify for the women’s 100m freestyle S9 finals, finishing fifth in the first heat.

Racing from lane one, the 25-year-old started slowly and wasn’t able to catch the rest of the field which included fellow Australian Emily Beecroft.

Patterson finished with a time of 1:05.47.

Beecroft will join fellow Australian Alexa Leary in the final. Leary set a world record time of 59.60 in the second heat.

Patterson will swim in the 200m IM SM9 heats tomorrow night (6.38pm AEST).

She took silver in the 400m freestyle S9 final last Friday.