Nicholson battles weather conditions to take maiden medal

Anna Nicholson overcame torrential conditions at the Stade de France to open her Paralympic account with bronze in the women’s F35 shot put.

Despite a massive downpour during the competition, the Brit who threw a best attempt of 9.44m to take third behind Ukraine’s Mariia Pomazan and China’s Jun Wang.

Nicholson admitted that success was not without its challenges, as the weather conditions played havoc on the field and on her practice throws.

But in true British fashion, rain was just a problem she embraced.

“It’s worth all the hard work that I’ve put in for the past 10 years,” she said.

“It was difficult in the rain. It was always set to rain on the forecast so I did some training in it and I knew that I still had some big throws but it was heavier than I was expecting.

“My first practice throw was absolutely shocking and I fell out of the circle so I just needed to reset and calm down.

“I knew I had a big throw in me so to have made it work in the conditions, I’m over the moon.”

Bronze marks an impressive improvement from Nicholson in the three years since her Paralympic debut in Tokyo.

The shot putter finished sixth that time round whilst fourth place finishes at the 2019 and 2023 world championships kept her just short of the podium.

And after a year of personal bests raining down on her, with a new mark of 9.47m set at the World Para Athletics Grad Prix, Nicholson was delighted to see her season come to a fairytale ending in Paris.

“Tokyo was a really hard year getting back in after training was so disrupted from Covid,” she said.

“The last three years, I’ve been on fire and training so hard. We looked at what all my weaknesses are and tried to pull that into my training.

“This year has been such a good year with PBs galore and I knew that if I went out and did what I could do then there was a chance of a medal.

“It feels absolutely amazing, I don’t think I will believe it until I get that medal around my neck.”

Olivia Breen took a fourth place finish on the chin in the women’s T38 long jump.

She jumped a distance of 4.99m in Paris, the exact same as Columbia’s Karen Palomeque Moreno, but it was the Colombian who reached the podium due to her second best of 4.89m being longer than Breen’s 4.79m.

Despite the disappointment, Breen admitted that she was already looking ahead to how she can return to the podium.

“I’m very disappointed, it’s obviously tough coming fourth when you’ve jumped the same distance as the bronze medallist,” she said.

“It’s a tough one to swallow but I’ve just got to move forwards really and re-evaluate to come back stronger.”

Maddie Down jumped to a personal best of 4.81m on her fourth attempt to finish sixth in the long jump at her maiden Paralympics.

Elsewhere, Funmi Oduwaiye finished fifth with a throw of 11.27m in the women’s F64 shot put final.