Swimmer Ellie targeting third gold (From Romsey Advertiser)
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Swimmer Ellie targeting third gold
12:56pm Saturday 8th September 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013
Ellie Simmonds will race for gold for the final time tonight in the S6 100m freestyle final
Swimming sensation Ellie Simmonds will be going for her third Gold of the Paralympics tonight as the Games draw to a close.
The penultimate day of the competition will see the final action in the Aquatics Centre, where the teenage swimmer is hoping to end her London 2012 campaign by winning the 100m freestyle.
She comfortably qualified from her heat on Saturday morning for the evening showdown - where she will again compete with rival Victoria Arlen.
She has already won two golds this week, the 400m freestyle and the 200m individual medley, and the 17-year-old, who has dwarfism, snatched bronze in the 50m freestyle.
Her father Steve predicted Simmonds would be "sad" to see an end to the Games - but she hoped to go home on a high.
He said: "We're not looking forward to it ending. It's been tremendous. The end of the competition itself is always sad because you've been building up to it for so long - and it's worse for the competitors.
"They're on a four-year cycle, they build and build to this week or so of competition and when it's over, it's over. It's quite a big down afterwards."
The 61-year-old, from Walsall in the West Midlands, said getting the gold would be "the icing on the cake" for his daughter, adding that from her first heat at the Aquatics Centre she seemed to be "at one" with the pool.
"She's had three full days of rest and she's ready for it," he said. "When I spoke to her, she said she wanted to go for it.
"We don't know what we're going to get. What we do know is that Eleanor will give her best. Whether that will be good enough or not, we'll have to wait and see."
