After overturning his disqualification, Kelly wins medley silver for Australia

Paris: When Ahmed Kelly looked up at the board at the Paralympic swimming arena on Sunday morning, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Next to Kelly’s name, after a lung-busting heat of the men’s 150-metre individual medley (SM3), read the dreaded letters DSQ.

The four-time Paralympian was stunned that he’d been disqualified. The sickening feeling of thinking his gold medal quest had been spoiled began to sink in as he was told the news on air by Channel Nine’s poolside interviewer Annabelle Williams.

Within eight hours, Kelly had a big grin and a silver medal around his neck, with great mate Grant “Scooter” Patterson taking third place in an identical result from Tokyo three years ago.

“The day has been quite challenging,” Kelly said afterwards.

In the 150m individual medley that Kelly took part in, swimmers have to complete one lap each of backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. Unlike at able-body competitions, the butterfly is not part of the Paralympics medley.

Ahmed Kelly competes in Paris.Credit: Getty Images

Officials believed Kelly, who has limb deficiency in his arms and legs, was breaking the rules by swimming butterfly in the final lap, instead of freestyle.

Kelly and members of the Australian team were flummoxed and adamant the officials were mistaken.

Above the surface of the water, Kelly’s stroke might have looked like butterfly, but cameras underwater showed that although he was swimming little differently to some others, he was indeed using the freestyle method.

News came through that Kelly had been reinstated and his medal dream was still alive.

“The reason surprised me because I’ve been to four Games, and they couldn’t get it right today for some reason,” Kelly said. “They make mistakes. Officials are humans. We put that put behind us and tried to put a real good race on tonight.

“Once the decision was overturned, it was all full focus for that final. It definitely didn’t impact that race. I’ve got quite a unique freestyle [stroke] that may look like it’s butterfly, but in fact … it’s not exactly butterfly.”

Kelly was in the lead by 3.47 seconds with one lap to go but took the silver, two seconds behind Germany’s Josia Topf.

“I’ve been working for the last three years for that gold and redemption from Tokyo silver,” Kelly said. “The disqualification couldn’t really throw me completely off the rails. I’ve gone through a lot worse.”

Ahmed Kelly is a four-time Paralympian.Credit: Getty Images

He’s right. Kelly, born in Iraq, was living in an orphanage in Baghdad with his brother after being born with underdeveloped arms and legs before being adopted and moving to Australia. He has forged a remarkable career in Paralympic swimming.

“It’s pretty special to be able to have your mate up there two Paralympics in a row,” Patterson said.

Australia picked up three other medals in the pool on Sunday, with Rowan Crothers (silver) and Tom Gallagher (bronze) doing the business in the men’s 100m freestyle (S10). There was also a silver in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay (S14), featuring Jack Ireland, Madeleine McTernan, Ruby Storm and Ben Hance.

“It’s hard to be too unhappy about that,” said Crothers of his second medal of the Games. “But everything I’ve been doing in training reflects the ability for me to go a lot faster.”

However, the Dolphins are lagging on the swimming medal tally, sitting 14th overall with one gold, four silvers and five bronze. Overall, after four days of Paralympic competition, Australia is in sixth place with six golds.

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