Paralympic Games 2016: Ellie Cole wins backstroke gold, despite being ‘taken down’ by self doubt

ELLIE Cole overcame rolling self-doubt to break a string of near-misses with a 100m backstroke gold that marked her first individual victory in Rio.

Ellie Cole gets her hands on a hard earned individual gold medal in Rio.

ELLIE Cole has revealed the rolling self-doubt that plagued her Paralympic Games campaign, after breaking a string of near-misses with 100m backstroke gold that marked her first individual victory in Rio.

The 24-year-old shed tears of joy and relief on the dais, after securing her breakthrough solo win of these Games with a Paralympic record swim of 1min 9.18s.

The time was half a second outside her own S9-class world record, but 0.4s better than silver medallist Nuria Marques Soto, of Spain.

The Sydney star added another thrilling silver to her collection soon after. Following her role in the women’s 4x100m relay win on Friday, she led Australia away with the opening backstroke leg in its narrow 4x100m medley relay runner-up finish to Great Britain.

Cole was one of Australia’s stars of the pool in London 2012, taking home four golds including her pet 100m backstroke crown.

But after silvers in each of the 50m and 400m freestyle in Rio, and bronze for the 100m freestyle in which she was defending Paralympic champion, Cole said she could feel herself being “taken down” by internal doubt at whether she deserved her place on the Paralympics stage.

“It’s day nine of competition, that can be hard for any athlete,” Cole said.

“I was watching the Olympics and watching the swimmers come out of the pool and saying how much of a rollercoaster the emotions were, and I completely understand what they were talking about now.

Cole says the Rio games have been an ‘emotional rollercoaster’.

“I knew that I was world record holder going into that race. I was still questioning if I was worthy to be there heading in — and I knew that I was, but it’s amazing that even after the amount of psychological sports training that I’ve had, those thoughts still come in and take you down.

“Usually the athletes who win are the ones who can put those thoughts aside, and tell themselves that they’ve got a good crack at winning.”

Cole was rarely troubled in the backstroke final. Racing in lane five, to the chants of “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie”, she turned narrowly in front and stretched her lead to half a body length by the final 25m.

She said while the victory was sweet, her campaign was a reminder of the work it took to remain at the top level.

“Winning four gold medals from the London games, I had a lot of expectation on myself — and the Australian public did too,” she said.

Cole was roared home by a vocal Aussie contingent in the crowd.

“You’ve just got to train as hard as you can and hope that you’ll still be No. 1 when you get to the next Games.”

The veteran of three Paralympic Games, who lost her right leg to cancer when aged just two, endured a disrupted lead-in to Rio that included surgery on each shoulder and a change in coach to Nathan Doyle.

“It’s really made me find that passion for sport again, because I personally have invested so much these last few years, as well as him,” Cole said.

“I feel like I had the responsibility on myself to bring home a gold medal for both of us today.”

Originally published as Paralympic Games 2016: Ellie Cole wins backstroke gold, despite being ‘taken down’ by self doubt