ROARING FORTIES

Veteran Whitehead vows to keep on running

RICHARD WHITEHEAD vowed to carry on sprinting into middle age – despite his dreams of double gold going up in smoke.

But 20-year-old Sophie Kamlish banished the demons of Rio last year, running away with the T44 100m final after beating the world record in the heats.

And the invincible Hannah Cockroft racked up her second gold of the games by winning the T34 800m for her 14th global gold.

Whitehead, who turns 41 tomorrow, could manage only third in the T42 100m final after a sluggish start.

But he refuses to chuck in the towel, and intends to make it to the next Paralympics in 2020.

He won’t be able to run in the 100m there – the event for single amputees has been scrapped and he urged the authorities to think again about that.

Whitehead said: “That’s what drives me and while I’m going to go to Tokyo there is no 100m in Tokyo. For me, that’s a backward step. I hope they’ll review that decision, especially after today.

“But I’m a four-times world champion over 200m and there are not that many athletes here who have done that. I want to continue to push on.”

In Brazil last year, Kamlish (above) broke a 10-year-old record in the heats before bombing in the final.

After running 12.90secs in the morning, she feared a repeat of the jitters but buried her ghosts. Kamlish said: “I was fairly concerned – the parallels with Rio were apparent but I knew exactly what went wrong in Rio and thought I could rectify that.” Olivia Breen, 20, got the day off to a golden start by winning the T38 long jump with a leap of 4.81m.

And she put her win down to switching training bases from London.

Breen said: “I’ve moved to Loughborough – and it’s been the best change ever.”