Tokyo Paralympics – Day 5: Warwick student among ParalympicsGB medal rush
It was a phenomenal Sunday for ParalympicsGB, picking up seven gold medals and further cementing their medal table second place. For Warwick in particular, one of our own posted a medal result – Kare Adenegan won silver in the T34 women’s 100m, her fourth Paralympic medal.
The event provided one of Britain’s golds, with Hannah Cockroft defending her title with a world-record time of 16.39, but it was the success of Adenegan that will be the major story on campus. The second-year History and Politics student got off to a strong start out of the blocks, one that Cockroft said in the post-race interviews that she was uncertain she’d be able to pass. Cockroft eventually mounted a comeback, with Adenegan taking silver in a season-best time of 17.03, ahead of bronze medallist Robyn Lambird of Australia.
On day five, ParalympicsGB were winning gold after gold. The wheelchair rugby team defeated the USA 54-49 in the final, taking gold and the nation’s first Paralympic medal of any colour in the sport. Sir Lee Pearson expanded his personal medal haul to 13 Paralympic golds after retaining the Para-equestrian team title with Natasha Baker and Sophie Wells – GB has won this event at every Games since its debut in 1996.
There were impressive wins in the rowing. In the PR2 mixed double sculls, Lauren Rowles and Laurence Whiteley beat the silver medallists the Netherlands by 4.86, while the PR3 mixed coxed four team of James Fox, Ellen Buttrick, Ollie Stanhope, Giedre Rakauskaite and cox Erin Kennedy finished more than 11 seconds ahead of the second-placed USA team. It was an anticipated win for the four – they have not lost this event since the 2010 Worlds.
Lauren Steadman took gold in the PTS5 women’s triathlon and compatriot Claire Cashmore won bronze, while George Peasgood took silver in the men’s event. Steadman’s victory was a solid one – she finished in 1:4.46, 41 seconds ahead of the USA’s defending champion Grace Norman. Peasgood took the lead in the swim, but he was overtaken by defending champion Martin Schulz of Germany during the run.
Gold medal number seven came in the judo, where Chris Skelley succeeded in the -100kg final – meanwhile, in the -90kg category, Elliot Stewart won silver. Will Bayley won silver after being defeated 3-1 by China’s Yan Shuo in the table tennis men’s singles final (class 7). The men’s foil team of Piers Gilliver, Dimitri Coutya and Oliver Lam-Watson took silver after being beaten by China in the fencing final, and both Ellie Challis and Louise Fiddes took swimming silvers in the S3 50m backstroke and SB14 100m breaststroke respectively. Scott Quin won bronze in the men’s SB14 100m breaststroke, while Maria Lyle won a second bronze in the T35 200m.
Elsewhere, the GB men’s wheelchair basketball team advanced into the quarter-finals with a 69-57 victory over Iran, while Andy Lapthorne and Antony Cotterill will face Japan for a wheelchair tennis bronze. The Irish sprinter Jason Smyth took the T13 100m gold in 10.53, one one-hundredth of a second ahead of Algeria’s Skander Djamil Athmani. There was a similarly narrow win for the USA’s Kendall Gretsch in the women’s PTWC triathlon, while the Belarusian swimmer Ihar Boki won his fourth Tokyo gold after victory in the S13 50m freestyle. Norway took two golds – Birgit Skarstein won in the PR1 women’s single sculls, while the visually impaired sprinter Salum Ageze Kashafali set a new world record of 10.43 to win the T12 100m gold.
Medal table:
- China
Gold (46), Silver (29), Bronze (29), Total (104)
- Great Britain
Gold (23), Silver (19), Bronze (18), Total (60)
- USA
Gold (15), Silver (16), Bronze (9), Total (40)
- Russian Paralympic Committee
Gold (15), Silver (9), Bronze (28), Total (52)
- Ukraine
Gold (10), Silver (22), Bronze (11), Total (43)
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