Hannah Cockroft stormed to the ninth gold of her Paralympics career with a huge victory in the women’s T34 800m. Despite finishing 11 seconds outside her personal best, the 32-year-old’s time of 1min 55.44sec was 7.68sec clear of fellow ParalympicsGB athlete Kare Adenegan. Eva Houston of the USA took the bronze.
Cockroft led from the start to add to her 100m gold from last Sunday. “It’s like being back in London, I love it,” she said, as she reflected on a run that has resulted in at least two golds at every Paralympics from 2012 onwards (she won three in Rio). “This is how many people love Para sport. This is what we want to see. It doesn’t end here, we have world and European championships year on year, it’s not a four-year gap for us.”
Fin Graham has had his fair share of close finishes at these Games. In the velodrome he had to settle for silver after being edged out by his teammate Jaco van Gass in the final of the men’s C3 individual pursuit. In the road time trial on Wednesday fewer than 20 seconds over those 28.3km separated him from a second medal.
But on Saturday he finally came out on the winning side of a close call, taking gold in the men’s C1-3 road race in Clichy-sous-Bois by a whisker from France’s Thomas Peyroton-Dartet.
A breakaway group of Graham, Peyroton-Dartet and his France teammate Alexandre Léauté dominated the race, establishing a safe lead over the field, with Graham and Peyroton-Dartet eventually shedding Léauté to set up a two-horse race for gold as they entered the final kilometre.
A partisan home crowd roared on Peyroton-Dartet, the time trial champion, in the final straight but it was the rider from Manchester who proved the stronger in the sprint, crossing the line barely a bike’s length ahead of his rival.
“The French made it hard because it was two against one the whole race,” said Graham, who takes home a gold and a silver medal from the Games. “I didn’t really know what their plan was because they were talking in French. I have got world titles and stuff, but Paralympic gold; nothing compares to it.”
Swimmer Alice Tai came into these Games with numbers on her mind: six surgeries on three limbs in two and a half years. She leaves with a very different set of figures: two bronzes, one silver and two golds, after third place in the women’s S8 100m butterflyon Saturday.
The 25-year-old from Poole led for the first 80 metres of the race only to be overhauled by one of the all-time greats, the USA’s Jessica Long whose win meant an astonishing 18th Paralympic gold, her 31st medal overall.
“That last five metres was rough,” Tai told Channel 4. “Man, am I tired. When Jess went past me I knew the other girls were going to be close – I was just hanging on. So I’m really happy with bronze. I left everything in that pool.”
Faye Rogers also took an early lead, after the opening butterfly leg of the women’s SM10 200m individual medley – unsurprisingly after her gold in the 100m event – but finished fifth, with China’s Zhang Meng taking gold.
After the near misses, though, GB then ended the swimming meet on a high, with Stephen Clegg adding his second gold of the Games in the S12 100m butterfly. “I would’ve liked to have gone a bit quicker,” he said. “The time wasn’t amazing but I came to get the gold and I got the gold.”
There was a silver for Daniel Powell in the men’s J1 -90kg judo, the Liverpudlian missing out to Brazil’s Arthur Cavalcante da Silva in the gold medal match, while Chris Skelley – a gold medal winner in Tokyo – won a hard-fought bronze in the J2 +90kg event.
In the equestrian individual freestyle event at the Château de Versailles, Sophie Wells won her second bronze of the Games in the Grade V, while Mari Durward-Akhurst took a bronze in the Grade I, Natasha Baker a bronze in the Grade III – also her second of the Games – and Georgia Wilson silver in the Grade II competition.
There was further silverware for Great Britain at the Grand Palais, where the men’s epee team of Dimitri Coutya, Piers Gilliver and Oliver Lam -Watson secured a bronze.
