On another golden day for ParalympicsGB in Tokyo, Phoebe Paterson Pine came through an emotional quarter-final against her teammate and close friend Jess Stretton in the women’s individual compound competition before going on to win archery gold – and there was a 14th Paralympic dressage gold medal for Sir Lee Pearson.
Paterson Pine was victorious by one point against Stretton, who won Paralympic gold in Rio in 2016, and went on to win the gold-medal match by the same slender margin against Chile’s Mariana Zúñiga Varela.
“I couldn’t in my wildest dreams have ever thought that this was going to happen,” Paterson Pine said. “I’ve worked incredibly hard for it and there was always a chance just because of the amount of hard work that I have put in. But as an athlete, you’re always not too sure and so I have a lot more confidence in myself now.”
Victory in the all-GB quarter-final brought a mixture of emotions. “I am struggling between feeling elated, myself, but she’s my teammate and a very close friend of mine. That’s very hard to balance,” Paterson Pine said after the match.
“We finished the match, I got off the line and immediately turned around to her and just said: ‘I’m sorry.’. That that’s the very first thing I said to her: ‘I’m so sorry.’”
There was a third gold of the Games – and 14th overall – for Pearson, who added the grade-two individual freestyle dressage title to individual test and team gold medals. His hat-trick has taken Pearson up to third in the all-time list of Britain’s most decorated Paralympians behind only Sarah Storey and Mike Kenny. Pearson’s teammate Georgia Wilson took bronze. Natasha Baker won silver in the grade-three competition.
Louise Sugden claimed a powerlifting bronze in the women’s -86kg category, lifting 131kg in the final round to reach the podium. “I still think I’m going to wake up at some point,” said Sugden. “But I think I’ve got a great coaching team. I’ve worked really hard and I’m just proud that it’s paid off.”
On the track Andrew Small won the T33 100m, leading the race from beginning to end. He had to hold off an incredible comeback from the Kuwaiti wheelchair racer Ahmad Kuw Almutairi, however, who came from 10m back to within one tenth of a second of victory. Britain’s Harri Jenkins won the bronze.
“This is the combination of a lot of hard struggles and it means so much,” said Small.
“I think back to all those cold evenings in the garage during the pandemic, training on the rollers on Zoom and not being able to hear anyone because of microphone troubles, this makes it worth it. It’s just wonderful to have five years’ worth of hard work pay off.”
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