Tonbridge teenager Iona Winnifrith has set her sights on gold after finishing fourth in her debut Paralympic final.

The 13-year-old swimmer is ParalympicsGB’s youngest athlete at Paris 2024 but showed experience well beyond her years to set a European record in the S7 women’s 200m individual medley.

Winnifrith had advanced to the final in a time of 3min10.16sec and was almost seven seconds faster in the finale at La Defense Arena, missing the podium by 1.98sec.

“I’m really happy,” said Winnifrith, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support - which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.

“I just wanted to do a PB, I just didn’t expect that, obviously fourth is a little bit disappointing but I am still really happy.

“I didn’t have any expectations; this is just a warm-up for me so to do that time is really good.”

Mallory Weggeman of the United States claimed gold to add the Paralympic record to her world record and it was an all-North American podium as Tess Routliffe took and Julia Gaffney won bronze, with Winnifrith an impressive best of the rest.

The youngster is involved in theatre productions away from her swimming and schoolwork and believes that it was her experiences on the stage that prepared for the raucous crowds in Paris.

She added: “I am quite used to going to performances with theatre productions. But that noise is quite cool. I watched the Olympics so I had an experience of what the noise would be like, but it is really cool.”

Winnifrith is one of 10 teenagers in the squad but is comfortably the youngest of the lot and has become the first athlete born in the 2010s to compete for ParalympicsGB.

She will next compete on Thursday, in her preferred event, the 100m breaststroke, in which is confident she can win gold.

“For my breaststroke, I am hoping for gold, my stand-up in prep camp a week ago was so good, I was really happy with that,” she said.

“And this race has given me so much confidence and I am just hoping for a massive PB and hopefully gold in the breaststroke, that would be really cool.”

While most 13-year-olds are eking out the final days of summer before a return to school, Winnifrith has two more events to come, also competing in the 50m butterfly.

The long time away from home has been made easier for the youngster by the bonds she is building with other members in the team.

Winnifrith added: “It has spurred me on so much, everyone has been coming back with their medals and it has made me even more confident.

“We have got such a big team; I am really close with Maisie [Summers-Newton] and some of the older ones.”

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