Magnificent 7!
Paralympian heroes beat Team GB’s gold medal haul... with a week to go
BRITAIN’S Paralympians were in seventh heaven yesterday – with seven gold medals in Tokyo helping them to overtake their Team GB Olympic counterparts.
Victories by stars including triathlete Lauren Steadman and wheelchair sprinter Hannah Cockroft came after the team bagged seven gold medals on ‘Super Saturday’.
‘Spectacular Sunday’, which also brought two bronze medals for Scots, took Britain’s gold haul to 23, one more than the Team GB athletes won during the Tokyo Olympics. Britain is second in the medal table with a week of events to come.
Miss Cockroft set a new world record to defend her 100m title after golds in Rio and London.
The 29-year-old, who has damage to her legs and feet after two cardiac arrests at birth, said victory was ‘so special’ after training during the pandemic in her garden in Chester.
Visually-impaired Chris Skelley, 28, from Hull, said after his judo gold: ‘I can’t believe it – I just want a pork pie.’
Britain’s wheelchair rugby team claimed its first ever medal – gold – after beating the USA 54-49.
Equestrian Sir Lee Pearson, 47, added another medal to his career total of 13 golds as he won a team dressage with Natasha Baker and Sophie Wells.
Two of Britain’s rowing teams claimed victory. Mixed double sculls pair Lauren Rowles and Laurence Whiteley defended their Rio title while the mixed coxed four team of James Fox, Ellen Buttrick, Ollie Stanhope and Giedre Rakauskaite – with cox Erin Kennedy – took gold.
Meanwhile, Britain’s youngest
Paralympian Ellie Challis, 17, from Clacton, Essex, won silver in the women’s 50m backstroke.
The quadruple amputee, who lost her limbs to meningitis and sepsis as a toddler and had only a five per cent chance of survival, said she was ‘shocked’ to win.
Also in the pool, Scott Quin, 31, from Edinburgh, finished third to win bronze in the SB14 100m breaststroke.
In athletics, Maria Lyle, 21, from Dunbar, East Lothian, secured her second bronze of the games in the T35 200m.
The 21-year-old earned three medals in Rio in 2016.
But there was disappointment on the track for wheelchair racer Sammi Kinghorn, 25, from Melrose, Selkirkshire, who finished fourth in the T53 800m.