Tokyo Paralympics: Chan Yui-lam into final as Hui Ka-chun narrowly misses out in the 100m backstroke heats

Chan caps last individual category heat in style to finish sixth of top eight for final this evening

Fellow Paralympics debutant Hui, 20, is ‘very happy’ with his performance and reiterates he will ‘keep improving’

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Hong Kong's Chan Yui-lam finishes first in the women's 100m butterfly (S14) heat 1 at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in August. Photo: Hong Kong Paralympic Committee

Published: 10:59am, 2 Sep 2021Updated: 11:30am, 2 Sep 2021

Hong Kong’s Tokyo 2020 Games breakout swimmer Chan Yui-lam will join her hero Jessica-Jane Applegate in the women’s 100-metre backstroke S14 final this evening after easing through the heats on Thursday.

The 17-year-old swam a one minute, 12.57 seconds (her personal best is 1:10.64) to finish third in her heat – behind Valeriia Shabalina of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) and Madeleine McTernan of Great Britain – to ensure she finished sixth of the top eight qualifiers at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

It will be the Paralympics debutant’s last individual event of the Games having competed almost every day since last Wednesday. Chan finished fourth in the 100m butterfly after setting a new Paralympics record in the heats last week, before failing to qualify for the 200m individual medley SM14 final on Tuesday.

She faces a tough task in the final scheduled 5.10pm Hong Kong time as the likes of Britons Bethany Firth and Applegate and Russian Shabalina have clocked times below 1:10.00. One impressive takeaway is that Chan, a 2018 Asian Para Games gold (100m butterfly), silver (200m individual medley) and bronze (100m backstroke), has one of the fastest reaction times of the octet.