Big weekend for South Tyneside swimmer Josef Craig in Paralympics

Josef, from Jarrow, won the 400m freestyle S7 category at the London Olympics four years ago.

On Thursday, he finished sixth in the 400m freestyle S8 final in Brazil, and afterwards congratulated his team-mate Ollie Hynd, who won the gold medal in a world record time.

Josef, 19, has had to adapt to a switch of classification since the last Parlaympics from S7 to S8, and injuries have also hampered his progress.

He still has further chances of medals in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay events, and will take part in the 100m freestyle events on Sunday, with the heats at 3.12pm and 3.16pm, and final at 11.29pm.

The 19-year-old said: “Massive congratulations to my team-mate Ollie Hynd doing it for Paralympics GB in a world record time.

“It’s something very special and I’m very proud to call him a friend and a team-mate. My performance was good. I didn’t really expect anything great from myself in the 400m freestyle in this category.

“A lot of troubles have hit me this year in terms of injury and my classification change obviously. I’ve had to switch my priorities and my focus.

“So like I said, I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular in that race but it’s just good to get in and be among the best in the world.”

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