Van den Brink reflects on Evers’ chances at Rio 2016

Dutch team manager Marco van den Brink has spoken of the chances of Paralympic champion Marc Evers retaining his 100m backstroke title at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

With the threat from Russia’s Viacheslav Emeliantsev growing in the men’s S14, van den Brink believes that Evers just needs to continue his focus.

“He has strong competitors in his class and the differences are small,” van den Brink said. “Doing his ultimate best is all he [needs to] do.”

In addition to his backstroke gold, Evers won bronze in the 100m breaststroke at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

But at the 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships, Evers lost out to Emeliantsev in the backstroke. He did however retain his 100m breaststroke title from 2013, improving on his Paralympic Games performance the previous year.

As in every competition, Evers is aiming for personal best times in his events at Rio 2016. Van den Brink commented: “He's swimming on a high level and trains hard for it. When he swims best times, he does his best performance ever and that feels great and is very satisfying.

“He had the experience of winning a [gold] medal during the Games [in London in 2012] and that gave him a great feeling...It would be great to experience this feeling again in Rio.”

Evers and Emeliantsev will meet for one last time before Rio 2016 at the 2016 IPC Swimming European Open Championships in Funchal, Portugal, between 30 April-7 May.

That will be the final chance for both swimmers to assess their performances at a major international competition. Tickets are completely free and are available for download at the event website.

Sport fans from around the world can now buy their Paralympic tickets for Rio 2016 from authorised ticket resellers (ATRs).

The IPC’s Global ATR is Jet Set Sports, and Rio 2016 tickets and packages can be purchased on the CoSport website.

Residents of Brazil can buy 2016 Paralympics tickets directly from the Rio 2016 website.