Tokyo Paralympics – Day 12: two more bronzes for Britain on the final day
On the final day of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Great Britain won two more bronze medals and finished in an impressive second place in the medal table.
In the men’s wheelchair basketball event, the British team recovered from their semi-final defeat to Japan to take the bronze. In the bronze-medal match with Spain, GB’s men bounced back, moving the score line from 30-28 down halfway to 50-40 up at the end of the third quarter, and then they held on to win 68-58. Japan had to settle for silver in the gold-medal match, being narrowly pipped to the win by the USA 64-60.
In the men’s SH6 badminton singles, Krysten Coombs took bronze, being Brazil’s Vitor Goncalves Tavares 12-21 21-10 21-16. In his semi-final, he lost to India’s Krishna Nagar, who would ultimately win gold in a close-fought match with Hong Kong’s Man Kai Chu. After claiming the medal, Coombs said: “Being here has been amazing but to come away with a medal is brilliant. I’m shocked and overwhelmed. I can’t believe it but I’ve been working so hard. Having the sport at the Paralympics will do so much for it all over the world.”
In the men’s T54 marathon, David Weir finished fifth, making Tokyo the first Paralympics since Athens 2004 since he has failed to win a medal of any colour. In the last event of the shooting programme, the R6 mixed 50m rifle prone SH1, both Matt Skelhon and Lorraine Lambert missed out on a medal – the gold went to Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova took the gold, with silver and bronze going to Sweden’s Anna Normann and Spain’s Juan Antonio Saavedra Reinaldo respectively. Those results mean shooting is the only one of the 19 sports Britain competed in in which it didn’t win any medals.
Penny Briscoe, the head of ParalympicsGB, said: “It’s been an incredible Games for ParalympicsGB. We’re absolutely delighted with the performance of the team. The medal total was always going to be difficult in terms of the return of Russian athletes. But for 18 out of 19 sports to deliver medal success was an absolutely phenomenal effort by the team. We’ve rewritten the history books out here in Tokyo.”
Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), said: “I think these Games were just sensational. The sport was unbelievable, world records were broken in every possible sport. Performances were fantastic. To think that these athletes have prepared for these Games under the circumstances of the pandemic, facing restrictions, is unbelievable. It’s proof that the Paralympic movement is stronger than ever before.”
Medal table:
- China
Gold (96), Silver (60), Bronze (51), Total (207)
- Great Britain
Gold (41), Silver (38), Bronze (45), Total (124)
- USA
Gold (37), Silver (36), Bronze (31), Total (104)
- Russian Paralympic Committee
Gold (36), Silver (33), Bronze (49), Total (118)
- The Netherlands
Gold (25), Silver (17), Bronze (17), Total (59)
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