When David Weir returned to the Olympic Stadium on Monday morning, it cannot have been easy for him to focus on his T54 400m final given that his partner gave birth to their third child back in London on Sunday. The emotion of missing Lenny Weir’s arrival into the world seemed to catch up with the wheelchair racer as his long run of success in the Paralympic Games ended with him finishing in a weary fifth place.
However, there was an eighth athletics gold for ParalympicsGB when Aled Davies built on his F42 shot put world and European titles with a throw of 15.97m.
Davies, who won discus gold in London four years ago, broke the Paralympic record with a first attempt of 14.85m and his final effort was 16cm off his own world record. Iran’s Sajad Mohammadian won silver and South Africa’s Tyrone Pillay won bronze.
The 25-year-old, who has an impaired range of motion after being born with hemimelia of the right leg, was the 25th British athlete to top the podium in Rio. Britain are second behind China in the standings.
“It has been a tough four years and particularly a massive two years,” Davies said. “I changed everything in 2014 and moved coach to Ryan Spencer-Jones.
He believed in me and he has pushed my aspirations through the roof. Even today I’m not very happy with the performance because I know I am in 16.5m shape. But it doesn’t matter, I have delivered on the Paralympic stage.”
Davies is already looking ahead to next year’s world championships in London. “It is probably going to be one of the biggest competitions of my career,” the Welshman said. “To get to relive London 2012 and be a better athlete now, that’s exciting.”
After winning all four of his events at London 2012, Weir replaced the 5,000m with the 400m. He fancied his chances in a shorter distance and was confident after winning his heat on Sunday night.
However, he started poorly and finished in 47.30sec. Kenny van Weeghel of the Netherlands won gold in 46.65sec.
“I don’t know what happened, I just didn’t get away as cleanly as I did yesterday,” Weir said. “My top speed wasn’t as high as it could have been but it’s just one of those things. It doesn’t really knock my confidence. It just wasn’t clean off the line like in the heats.
“It’s moved on massively and improved so much but today was a little bit slow, so I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest. I didn’t execute the points that I should have done but that’s racing.”
This is Weir’s final Paralympics. The 37-year-old has won six golds overall and has four more events in Rio.
The 400m was billed as a battle with his British team-mate, Richard Chiassaro, who is making his Paralympic debut. However Chiassaro finished fourth in 47.17sec, missing out on bronze to Tunisia’s Yassine Gharbi. China’s Yang Liu won silver.
“I had a wobble on the second bend as I went into it,” Chiassaro said. “I think if I hadn’t done that I would have had the bronze medal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’ve placed fourth. I just thought I should have had third.
“The plan in the 400m was to go out hard and get the time I did last night.
“If I had, I would have got the bronze so I’m gutted. I knew the Chinese lad was going to come past on the inside lane but the plan was to use him to chase the rest down.”
