Paralympics Ireland has condemned the online racist abuse directed at swimmer Deaten Registe during the 2024 Paris Games.

The 20-year-old athlete finished sixth in his first Paralympic final last week in the SB14 100m breaststroke, with a personal best of 1:07.82.

The Tyrone native was subjected to online racial abuse in the lead-up to the final following a social media post which highlighted the breastroker's participation in the Games, and received several racist replies. While he was unaware of it prior to the race, Paralympics Ireland informed his mother so as to not distract him at what was his maiden Paralympic Games.

Paralympics Ireland CEO Stephen McNamara condemned the racism in a social media post, calling it "unacceptable".

“It happened in the Olympic cycle with some athletes and it has happened now with Deaten,” McNamara. “The reality is, and I think Irish people would support this, is that we want those athletes, they represent us, we don’t want these keyboard warriors, they don’t represent us.

“I think Ireland is having a really difficult time at the moment in relation to that and I think it is happening all across Europe as well in terms of the voices that are coming through social media, and I think social media companies should do more.

“I think that when an athlete at a Paralympic Games just happens to have a different skin tone and becomes a target of their ire, it is just not acceptable.”

Registe is a relative newcomer to the Irish Paralympic swim team and his first major international appearance was at the European Championships in Madeira, Spain at the end of April, during which he finished fourth in the 100m breaststroke.

“From our point of view we have a duty of care to the athletes, we didn’t discuss it with the athlete at the time,” McNamara said, explaining his decision to not tell Registe until after his race. “Obviously through the duty of care we have spoken to the athlete and the athlete’s family and we don’t want that to happen again.

“These things self-correct a lot on social media, you’ll have one person saying one negative thing and 10 or 100 people coming in supporting the athlete.

“Ultimately we can’t guarantee it won’t happen again but what we have seen across the whole Games is such a huge swell of support for all of our athletes.”

Team Ireland are due to return to Dublin today having won six medals at the Paralympics Games in Paris. Of those medals, the team have achieved one gold, three silver and two bronze after Katie-George Dunlevy (twice with Linda Kelly and once with Eve McCrystal), Róisín Ní Riain and Orla Comerford climbed the podium in Paris.