Kirkby swim star Ollie safely through to Rio backstroke final tonight

Ollie Hynd with his gold medal from last week - picture by onEdition.

However, he knows he will have his work cut out to win a second Rio gold as Hynd won the second heat in 1.06.12, but heat one was won by American Robert Griswold in a new Paralympic record time of 1.05.33.

Hynd, who won bronze in this event at London 2012, 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).

The impressive Griswold won heat one ahead of Ukranian pair Iurii Bozhynskyi (1.05.94) and Bohdan Hrynenko (1.06.73)

The final is set to be swum at 11.14pm tonight.

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

The 21-year-old, who trains with Mansfield’s Nova Centurion squad, led from the front to finish first in 4:21.89, in the event he won silver in London 2012.

Then on Sunday night he managed a personal best but narrowly missed out on a medal in the S8 100m freestyle last night at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, finishing fourth in a time of 58.85 seconds behind third placed Great Britain team-mate Josef Craig in 58.19.

Ollie will 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.