As the sun dropped to the west of the Eiffel Tower, Jodie Grinham shot into history, becoming what is believed to be the first openly pregnant woman to win a Paralympic medal after winning a shoot-off for bronze against fellow Briton and great friend Phoebe Paterson Pine.
It was a thrilling individual compound open match, with Paterson Pine, who took gold in Tokyo, taking a slender lead and holding onto it into the final end. She needed to hit a 10 to win from her final arrow, a nine to go into a one arrow shoot-off, but shot an eight to gasps – nerves getting the better of her at the crucial moment.
Grinham bent over in shock, before the two hugged – they’ve been buddies since they were teenagers, training together since 2014.
“I knew I needed a 10 to put any pressure on her,” Grinham said, “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and it sucks where it’s a teammate but we both know that’s sport.”
Grinham, tall, shocking pink fringe, and long hair dyed blue at the ends, has an unerring eye for the centre of a target. But the swollen belly of a seven-month pregnant woman has meant making adjustments, with an extra low-slung quiver round her middle, which in turn has meant she has had to tweak how she lifts and holds the bow. And flat shoes to stop her rocking around in a sport where concentration is everything.
Amy Truesdale and Matt Bush wrote their names into the history books by grabbing Great Britain's maiden Paralympic taekwondo golds on a milestone evening in Paris.
Truesdale triumphed in the women's K44 +65kg event when the defending champion, Guljonoy Naimova, was dramatically stretchered out of the final. With the Briton dominating and leading 8-1, the Uzbek fighter stayed down following a kick to the throat before withdrawing from the contest.
Chester-born Truesdale [pictured] faced an anxious wait to discover her fate after her rival departed in distress. She was shown a yellow card, with officials accepting the kick to the throat was not intentional, costing her a point but securing an 8-2 victory and allowing her to celebrate success.
Welshman Bush backed up his teammate's landmark success by beating neutral athlete Aliaskhab Ramazanov 5-0 in the showpiece match of the men's K44 +80kg event at the Grand Palais. The double gold takes ParalympicsGB's total in Paris to 11, as they stay second only to China in the medal table. PA Media
And as an extra distraction, she’s had to deal with the little kicks of her increasingly active baby. “The baby hasn’t stopped [moving], the baby is saying, what are you doing? It’s been a real honour to know that the baby is there and that little support bubble I’ve got in my belly.
“It was really starting to worry me that the baby was going to move when I was at full draw and it was going to affect my shot, but my coach and I spent a long time doing little pregnancy prep with her moving me and the bump so I could get used to that feeling. Even during matches today up at full draw I acknowledged it, mummy loves you, I’ll cuddle you in a minute, then carried on doing my processes. Then I gave him a little stroke afterwards and said it’s all fine, I know it’s a lot of noise, a lot of heartbeat.”
At seven months, Grinham is now at the same stage that she went into premature labour with her son Christian, now two. But she was determined to show it was possible to be an elite competitor while at a late stage of pregnancy. There were precautions – she checked that Les Invalides was within eight minutes of the nearest hospital. And she spent the last week in and out of hospital for checks – but it was worth it to break boundaries.
“There is no stigma,” she said, “the stereotype of things is completely irrelevant, if you feel you can do it, it doesn’t matter. If the doctor says it’s fine, then go and do it.”
Archery has been part of the Paralympics since the very first games in Rome in 1960. But it can have had fewer lovelier setting than in the Esplanades des Invalides, with the grey skeleton of the Eiffel Tower rising to one side of the arena, the gilded dome of the Hotel des Invalides at another, topiaried trees in obedient straight lines in the garden, and the gleaming bronze winged horses of Pont Alexandre III peering over from the north.
Much to the enthusiastic crowd’s disappointment, two favourites were knocked out early. Sheetal Devi, 17, of India, the armless archer who lifts and holds the bow with her foot and pulls the string with her teeth, and has 312,000 followers on Instagram, fell in the elimination round. And Julie Rigault Chupin of France was beaten at the quarter-final stage despite the crowd’s enthusiastic efforts to “Faites du Bruit!” After a consoling back rub from her coach, she was roared out of the stadium.
