British record as Kirkby ace Ollie wins backstroke silver in Rio

Ollie Hynd in Rio - picture by onEdition.

Hynd swam home in 1.04.46 – a new personal best and a new British record.

But it wasn’t enough to overhaul winner Zhou Cong, of China, who won gold in a new world record of 1.02.90, American Robert Griswold taking bronze in 1.04.68.

Winning silver was a step up for Hynd, who won bronze in this event at London 2012, and afterwards he said: “I didn’t get the gold, but it took a world record to beat me.

“I can honestly say I left everything in the pool tonight and that’s as fast as I possibly could have gone, so I’ve got to be happy with that silver.

“Over the last four years me and my coach Glenn (Smith) have in the background gone about working on the backstroke a little bit more than maybe some people realise.

“So I put a lot of pressure on myself tonight. I wanted to deliver a good performance, so a Pb and silver medal – I’m happy.”

In the afternoon heat Hynd pulled away in the second of the two lengths for victory ahead of Argentinian Pipo Carlomagno (1.07.70) and Chile’s Zhou Cong (1.07.72).

But in the first heat impressive American Griswold won his heat in a new Paralympic record time of 1.05.33 ahead of Ukranian pair Iurii Bozhynskyi (1.05.94) and Bohdan Hrynenko (1.06.73).

Ollie set a new world record on his way to Paralympic gold in the Men’s S8 400m freestyle on Thursday.

Then on Sunday night he managed a personal best but narrowly missed out on a medal in the S8 100m freestyle, finishing fourth in a time of 58.85 seconds.

Ollie is set to defend the Paralympic gold title won in London in the SM8 200m individual medley on Saturday with the heats at 1.52pm and the final at 9.43pm.