That marks the end of the Guardian’s Paralympics coverage for 2021, née 2020. Backing onto the Olympic Games, it has been a remarkably densely packed few weeks for sport. We’ve enjoyed every minute.
Thanks to everyone for reading, thanks to the commenters chatting below the line, and thanks especially to the organisers for pulling off this extraordinary accomplishment of staging both Games safely and entirely, and to the athletes for competing in what must have been the most difficult and nerve-wracking experience of their sporting careers.
To go through the strictures and privations and anxiety of the covid era, and still even take your place on the sporting stage, let alone produce your best - every single athlete who competed should be so proud of having done so. You have our respect. You have your memories. Carry your achievements with you.
Signing off.
And that, as they say, is that. The stadium goes dark, then the lights come up. The cameras switch to the tracking shot in the sky from the blimp or drone or helicopter that is circling up there, showing the circle of light nestled within the darkness and sparser spangled lights of the city of Tokyo.
It is time to zoom out, to zone out, to take ourselves home.
Updated
There’s a long rendition - first one singer, then another, then orchestrally - of It’s a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. A classic for moments like this.
“I’ve never smiled so much, my mouth hurts,” says Australian flag-bearer Ellie Cole on a cross.
And from the Great Britain perspective, a wrap-up of everything that took place in the last couple of weeks.
Here’s our bit on the b-ball.
The Tokyo games are declared closed, and the call goes out to athletes to meet again in Paris.
We’re up to the speeches now, which are receiving a level of polite end-of-season-footy-club-fundraiser-night applause given this is a very large stadium a very long way from capacity.
Handover time - to France
The Paralympic flag is taken down from where it flies next to a huge Japanese flag. It is folded and handed to representatives from Paris 2024. Then a black-clad French wheelchair choir of sorts join in a silent song of dance, communicating with their arms and hands.
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“Will the Coronavirus pandemic be over in time for the XXIVth Olympic Winter Games and the XIIIth Paralympic Winter Games?” asks Kurt Perleberg by email.
Not a chance, Kurt, sorry. Vaccination coverage is nowhere on a global scale, and we have no idea yet how mutations might outpace vaccines.
It is an absolute riot out there. Like a fancy dress party where everyone actually made an effort to dress up. So many styles of costume. The guys on massive holographic stilts may be beyond the scope for anyone’s house party though.
Updated
There’s a whole bunch of Japanese musicians out there now putting on a show. Two wheelchairs that are fitted with drums on each side, aligned with the wheels, for their users to turn them into instruments - sick. And now a whole motley medley of costumes on dancers who come out. The theme for tonight involves harmony and cacophony, and that’s what we’re seeing.
Awards done. Party time is back on. The vibe is now kind of... circus meets Carnivale meets glowing undersea creatures meets Burning Man at night. Clowns in wheelchairs give way to iridescent butterfly dancers, circling in the darkness, glowing their hearts out. The music vibe is... Pjanoo by Eric Prydz plus a bunch of big band swing?
@GeoffLemonSport @ParalympicsGB We need more integration with non-disabled competition, following these Games. All elite athletes should have national & international stages. Awareness has been raised, demand has been created. Now it should be followed up. #C4Paralympics
— Andrea McCulloch (@mcculloch29) September 5, 2021
I'm Possible awards go to
Lassam Katongo from Gambia, and Katarzyna Rogowiec from Poland. He was a runner, she was a cross-country skiier, at past Games. Now they are running programs for others in their home countries.
There is a presentation now about the I’m Possible Award and movement, one that helps spread the idea of high achievement for people with disabilities.
Updated
There is a silver mirrored tower in the middle of the city that has been lying on its side until now. Many of the athletes were going up to affix magnetic silver badges to its side. Now the dancers are raising it with ropes to stand upright.
Everyone has come in who is coming in for now. Many athletes couldn’t stay for this ceremony, so it’s a small selection comparatively who are present. but still substantial numbers. And now Japanese dancers flood the model city that has been built, dressed in white robes with fluorescent stripes, and waving light batons like those that road workers might use to direct traffic. This lot are more cheerful than your average roadworkers though.
イギリスの選手たちが一緒にノリノリで踊ってて一体感が凄くあって好き🥰 #パラリンピック #Paralympics #WeThe15 #閉会式 #ClosingCeremony pic.twitter.com/igVxE2Elg0
— てんげるまん🌀tengelmam (@fcbliebe1900) September 5, 2021
There is a kind of miniature cityscape laid out inside the stadium. Like a cartoon version of a city, with sculptures of buildings and parks and plazas and trees, made by athletes with disabilities. Gradually this city fills up, first with volunteers who are dressed in long purple-striped smocks, then with athletes. Each country’s flag-bearers come in, one or two athletes chosen to represent that nation, and they’re applauded and accompanied along the walk by one purple friendly, while being cheered and applauded and waved along by dozens of others, all of these limbs forming a human amoeba or jellyfish rippling in the lights.
Updated
Into the stadium we go, at the start of the closing ceremony for these Games.
And it’s as good a time as any to peruse the final medal table.
Here is Martin Belam’s briefing document, which probably covers everything I’ve laid out below, but better.
Some follow-up on the British track races and athletes from the final night there, which was yesterday.
Here’s the wires report on the marathons.
USA, USA, USA
You know the drill. Basketball, they win it. The US men’s wheelchair team golded up against Japan, but it was much closer. The Japanese scored with 31 seconds left to close the gap to 60-63. USA scored one from a free throw. Japan scored a rebound and had a shot with 17 seconds that would have made it it 62-64 - but missed it. The USA held on.
Bronze for the Great Britain men's basketball team
The wheelchair basketballers up against Spain did it comfortably. Scores were level after one quarter, two points up at the half, but in the third quarter GB skipped out to a 10-point lead and held it from there. Terry Bywater hit 14 points.
Updated
The USA beat China in the women's volleyball
When you think China and you think USA, you think contests. You think competition. In fact, sitting volleyball could be another name for diplomacy. In this case, the Americans won 3 sets to 1.
That denied China one last gold medal. They finished their games on 96 gold, as well as 60 silver and 51 bronze. The next best was 41 gold and 124 total to Great Britain, next to China’s total of 207.
In the shooting, we had the R6 fixed 50m rifle prone SH1 final, which is also a phrase the police make you say when they pull you over. The medal order went: Slovaka, Sweden, Spain, with the shooters Veronika Vadovicova, Anna Normann, and Juan Antonio Saavedra Reinaldo.
There were seven gold medal badminton matches today across men and women, singles and pairs, and classes. Two went to China, two to Japan, one each to Indonesia, France, and Hong Kong.
Seven bronze matches, too. The one in which our British readers will have most interest went to Krysten Coombs, the Brighton lad who beat his Brazilian opponent in the SH6 men’s singles.
Of the others, two went to India, one to China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan.
Tokyo picture gallery
Picture time? Have a flick through these.
Updated
In the men’s T46 marathon, which is for athletes with an upper limb amputation, China won gold via Li Chaoyan in a Games record of 2:25:50. Alex Pires de Silva won silver for Brazil, Nagata Tsutomu bronze for Japan.
An Australian runner also holds the world record in this event, Michael Roeger running that at the same meet where Clifford set his in April. But Roeger ran nearly 16 minutes behind that time today to finish sixth.
There was a last gold for Japan too in the women’s T12 marathon. That was also won in a Games record time, Michishita Misato running 3:00:50. She was minutes ahead of second place, the Russian Elena Pautova, with Louzanne Coetzee representing South Africa third.
Jaryd Clifford took out another silver
He’s been a favourite of these Games, the young Australian, for the way he’s spoken after races and the way he’s run during them. Bronze in the 1500m, silver in the 5000m, and finished off today with silver in the T12 marathon for visually impaired runners. He does hold the world record in this event, but that was presumably set on a dry and mild day in Sydney in April. This marathon was run in pouring rain and Tokyo summer humidity.
Beating him in for gold was the Moroccan, El Amin Chentouf, who ran a Games record of 2:21:43. Bronze went to the hosts via Horikoshi Tadashi.
In the men’s T54 marathon, Switzerland did get the top prize. Manuel Hug (a very cuddly name) had no such concerns on the line. He burned into the stadium well clear of anyone, and had almost a lap to himself before Zhang Yong of China arrived to take silver. Bronze saw the American Daniel Romanchuk break away late from a couple of rivals.
Madison de Rozario's extraordinary gold finsh
I mean, this was unbelievable. The women’s T54, the wheelchair racers. Doing an entire marathon. They can do it faster than runners on foot, given that racing chairs can reach a good speed anytime there’s a downhill, but they’re doing the entire race with their shoulders and arms. It’s an extraordinary feat just to get through it.
After 42 kilometres of that, Madison de Rozario came into the stadium with Swiss racer Manuela Schaer on her six. Schaer had won the 800 in the T54 class, de Rozario the 800 in the T53. On their final lap around the stadium, Schaer chased all the way. She had more closing speed. Madison de Rozario was being tracked down. She was exhausted. But she found just enough to lunge and stay ahead in the closing straight.
After all that distance, a single chair’s length separated them. One second the difference in finishing time. A new Games record with 1:38.11, and an unforgettable gold for the Australian.
The marathon(s)
Frankly, I believe that the time of 6am is an affront to humanity. Nobody should be doing anything at 6am except possibly coming home after a good one. In an ideal world nobody would ever see 6am. It would be like the Gippsland panther: occasionally mentioned, never verified, not exciting enough to bother searching for.
And yet, at 6am this morning in Tokyo, a mass of athletes gathered for the express purpose of competing in a marathon. Some on feet, some on wheels, with staggered starts by event type from 6:30 up to 6:50am.
It is a triumph of the human willingness to do painful, painful things.
Time for a look back at what did happen earlier today, while the UK was snoozing and Japan was busy.
Welcome
Hello, and welcome to Paralympics Day 12 - and final. Today was less intensely packed with events than the last couple of weeks, as is traditional, though there were a last few medals handed out in the marathons, badminton, shooting, volleyball and basketball. That’s it for sport.
Tonight, Tokyo time, we will instead be gearing up for the Paralympic closing ceremony. Going by the standards that the Tokyo organisers have set for themselves across three ceremonies so far dating back to the Olympic Games, it should be a special spectacle. For those who can’t watch along, I’ll do my best to capture it for you.
Tonight more than ever would be a good time to hear from you. Let me know your best memories from these Games, your favourite moments, the sports or athletes you’ve discovered, the conversations you’ve had, what you’ll look forward to next. My email address is in the sidebar.
