The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
A Super Sunday in Rio
by Bob French bob.french@jpress.co.uk Jody Cundy: “This is probably the highest I’ve ever been.” Lauren Steadman: “I went a bit wrong on the swim but still had a great race.”
Paralympians from the Peterborough area played a prominent part for Team GB on a Super Sunday in Rio. Within the space of acouple of hours, there were gold medals for city rower James Fox and Wisbech cyclist Jody Cundy plus a silver medal for triathlete Lauren Steadman from Sawtry.
By close of play Team GB had enjoyed their most successful day at Rio 2016 with 21 medals won across five differentsports- morethanthebest single day at London 2012 (18) and Beijing 2008 (19).
For Cundy, who raced to victory in the mixed team sprint with Jon-Allan Butterworth and Louis Rolfe, it wasa second gold medal within the space of 48 hours.
On Friday night, the 37 year-old from Walpole St Andrew scorched to victory in the C4-5 1 km timetrial, which came as a huge relief after he was disqualified when attempting to defend that title four years earlier in London.
Speaking immediately after Sunday’s success, he said: “After four years ago and being the lowest I’ve ever been, this i s probably the highest I’ve ever been.
“I was properly nervous for the kilo, I didn’t really enjoy it that much.
“But this one, with these two guys, and the way they have been riding in the last couple of months, it’s a pleasure to get up there and perform.”
The trio set a new world record time of 48.635 to beat China in the final.
It’s almost certain to have been Cundy’s farewell performance. If so, he’ll bow out with an impressive record of seven Paralympic titles since striking gold as a swimmer in Atlanta in 1996.
Cundy went into the 1km event as a red-hot favourite having won the world title in 2014, 2015 and earlier this year.
And it was a similar story for former Jack Hunt schoolboy Fox.
The 24 year - old Peterborough City Rowing Clubmember was in a mixed coxed four crew that we real so world champions going into the 2016 Games. In fact they’d never been beaten in three years of rowing together.
And once again they didn’t disappoint, beating the USA by a comfortable two and a half seconds with Canada taking the bronze medal.
Once they crossed the line, Fox let out a loud shriek of relief and joy, Pam Relph waved to then umerous GB fans while Dan Brown and Grace Clough embraced. And there was another group hug for the quartet, plus cox Oliver James, once they were back on dry land.
Steadman (23) was also a favourite for gold in the women’s tria-thlon PT4 but a tactcal error in the swim cost her dearly.
She missed a buoy and had to swim an additional 25 metres which took its toll in the closing stages when she was overtaken by America’s Grace Norman and had to settle for silver.
She said: “I went a bit wrong on the swim and I’m really gutted because it cost me about 40 seconds.
“I managed to getback into second by the endof the swim and I made a lot of effort on the bike and that really drained me. When I got onto the run it was just about trying to hang on to silver.”
Steadman made her Paralympic debut as a swimmer eight years ago and also swam for Team GB in London. But has blossomed since switching sports.
She added: “I made the finals i n London, but didn’t make the medals, so this is the icing on the cake, finally getting my hand so named al after all that time.”
In the end her time of 1:11.43 was over a minute behind Norman, but Steadman insisted: “I still had a great race and I’m really pleased with my effort.”