Today in a nutshell: Storey makes it 17, there’s the first ever Paralympic medals in Taekwondo, and there was a surprise proposal on the athletics track.
Fridays’s key moments: it is the final day of the swimming, there are finals in the goalball and the wheelchair tennis, semi-finals in sitting volleyball and wheelchair basketball, and Lora Fachie rides again on the final day of cycling.
Was there ever any doubt that Sarah Storey was going to win the women’s C4-5 cycling road race to complete a journey she began 29 years ago as she won her 17th gold medal to become, outright, the most successful British Paralympian of all time? “I can’t really explain it,” she said afterwards. “I feel like it is happening to somebody else.”
It is always happening to somebody else for Crystal Lane-Wright. She’ll come away from the Fuji International Speedway track with two silver medals, knowing it was only the dominance of teammate Story that stopped that being two golds. Marie Patouillet won bronze for France.
There was also a British one-two and a French bronze in the men’s C1-3 road race. Ben Watson won it from Finlay Graham, with Alexandre Léauté third.
It was the first ever day of taekwondo at a Paralympics, and the spoils went to Leonor Espinoza Carranza of Peru in the women’s K44 -49kg category, with Brazil’s Nathan Cesar Sodario Torquato taking the first-ever men’s title in the K44 -61kg.
Men choosing to propose to their partners during the Olympics and Paralympics doesn’t always go down well – there’s sometimes an accusation that it is a man upstaging the sporting achievement of his partner for a publicity stunt. Cape Verde’s Manuel Vaz da Veiga is a special case though – as he had just run the T11 200m with Keula Pereira Semedo, as he is her running guide. “We have been together in a relationship for 11 years, so I thought it was about time to come up with a proposal. So why not do it?” he said afterwards. Semedo said yes, saying “These were my first Paralympic Games and with my age and speed I was actually thinking about stopping afterwards but now I have an additional motivation to carry on after the Games, always with him by my side.”
Awwwwww ❤️
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The briefing’s picture of the day
Afghan taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi today became only the second woman to compete for Afghanistan at the Paralympics, after her much-publicised flight from Kabul. Both she and fellow Afghan Paralympian Hossain Rasouli have expressed a desire not to speak to media.
Our gallery is filled with the best images from day nine in Japan, including cycling, kayaking, taekwondo and heavy rain. I don’t know who won the medals in the raining competition.
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 ParalympicsGB update
Dan Pembroke had previously competed as a javelin thrower before a degenerative eye condition that had developed as a child worsened, but he sealed a successful transition to the Paralympics by setting a new Paralympic and European record on his debut as he won the F13 javelin. Also in the field Dan Greaves won a medal for his sixth consecutive Games with bronze in the F64 Discus, while on the track, Sammi Kinghorn bettered her T53 100m bronze with a T53 400m silver.
Bethany Firth won her sixth Paralympic title in the S14 100m backstroke. It was the third consecutive time she has won the event, and is her fourth medal of these Games. Jessica-Jane Applegate finished the same race in bronze. Reece Dunn also added to his personal medal tally with a bronze in the S14 100m backstroke. The 26-year-old Ellie Simmonds gave an emotional interview after finishing fifth in the final of the S6 400m freestyle which appeared to suggest that was the last time we will see her competing at the Paralympics.
In the archery today Hazel Chaisty reached the quarter-final, but the gold medal in the women’s individual recurve went to Iran’s Zahra Nemati. It is her third consecutive gold.
Jordanne Whiley and Lucy Shuker will be in the final of the women’s doubles in the wheelchair tennis, but there will be an unwanted bronze medal playoff between men’s doubles partners Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, after they both lost their singles semi-finals.
🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺 Australia update
Paralympics canoe sprinter Curtis McGrath breathed a sigh of relief after he veered off course and hit a floating box marking the finishing line but still managed to get through what he later called one of the worst races of his life. Aiming to win two gold medals, McGrath nearly saw his dreams of successfully defending his kayak single 200m KL2 title vanish after the incident.
The T63 long jump went to Vanessa Low of Australia, who won the title in 2016 as Vanessa Low of Germany. Low is competing in the green and gold this time after marrying sprinter Scott Reardon and switching teams. She broke her own world record, jumping 5.28m, 20 centimetres further than her previous mark.
There was a rewarding day in the pool for Australia, with gold medals for William Martin in the 400m freestyle S6, Ben Hance in the 100m backstroke S14 and Rachel Watson in the S4 50m freestyle.
And today’s gold medalists will be rewarded more than they expected to be when they arrived in Tokyo. Australia’s Paralympians will now receive the same cash bonus as their able-bodied counterparts after the federal government committed to providing financial support. Prime minister, Scott Morrison, said the achievements of Australia’s Paralympians were of national significance and should be recognised in the same way as the Olympians.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Team USA update
China powered past the US men’s goalball team in their semi-final with an 8-1 victory to set up a final with Brazil, who dumped out the reigning champions Lithuania. In the women’s competition Turkey beat Japan 8-5 to set up a US-Turkey final. The US women edged past Brazil.
Another day, another medal for Jessica Long. Her 28th this time in the 4x100m medley relay, and it was gold for good measure. Tatanya McFadden finished fourth in her 400m T54 final on the track, though, probably the most frustrating way to miss out on a 20th Paralympic medal. She was just 0.25sec off claiming a third successive gold in the event.
🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵 The hosts and beyond
There’s been concern for Belgian wheelchair tennis player Joachim Gérard, who has been hospitalised after falling ill in the Paralympic Village. “The emergency services arrived quickly on the spot and took Joachim Gérard to the hospital,” said the Belgian Paralympic Committee. “He had regained consciousness and was able to answer questions. First research is pointing towards a cardiac issue.”
I said to you yesterday that I would not bet against China taking a clean sweep in the five team table tennis golds available today. I was not wrong.
Huang Xing won the mixed 25m pistol SH1 shooting, with a silver for Poland’s Szymon Sowinski and a bronze for Ukraine’s Oleksii Denysiuk.
Argentina will face Brazil in Saturday’s football five-a-side final after Argentina beat China 2-0 and Brazil beat Morocco 1-0 in the semi-finals. Brazil are yet to concede a goal at this Paralympics.
Switzerland’s Marcel Hug made it three wins out out of three events at these Games with a win in the T54 800m, while it was another great Paralympic day for Ukraine. Among their successes Maksym Krypak claimed his fourth gold medal of Tokyo 2020 in the men’s 100m freestyle S10 making it the ninth Paralympic title of his career. Krypak set a new world record, then said “I’m satisfied, I’m happy, but I hope in the future I can get a better result.”
It wasn’t just a couple of British one-two finishes in the road cycling today, Germany did the same in the women’s T1-2 road race, with Jana Majunke finishing 2min and 42sec clear of her teammate Angelika Dreock Kaeser. China’s Chen Jianxin won the men’s T1-2 road race, and there was a team gold for Italy in the mixed H1-5 relay, with France second and the US third. It might have been a mixed relay but Italy certainly haven’t mixed up the haircuts much here, have they?
Key events for Friday 3 September
All events are listed here in local Tokyo time. Add an hour for Sydney, subtract eight hours for Belfast, 13 hours for New York and 16 hours for San Francisco.
🌟If you only watch one thing: 5.45pm Goalball – it is finals Friday in the goalball, first up is the women’s contest as defending champions Turkey battle TBD, then there will be new men’s champions, as Rio bronze medallists Brazil face China at 7.30pm 🥇
9am – 9pm Badminton – it is another incredibly long day at the Yoyogi National Stadium, and after a day packed with pool matches the badminton should start getting to the quarter-final stages after 8pm.
9.30am and 1pm Road cycling – It is the final day of road racing at the Paralympics and there are four more gold medals to finish the programme. At 9.30am the men’s C4-5 road race starts, and five minutes later the women get going. Then at 1pm early risers are rewarded with the men’s and women’s B road races. Lora Fachie will be aiming for the bragging rights in the Fachie household by bringing home a third medal to add to the one that her husband Neil is bringing back too 🥇
9.30am Canoe sprint – the men have their finals in three classes of the kayak single 200m while it is the women’s turn at the va’a single 200m 🥇
9.30am and 2.25pm Boccia –the day is given over to pool matches in the pairs competition.
9.30am and 7pm Athletics – unbelievably, it is one of the quieter days, with a mere 17 gold medals on offer. The 4 x 100m universal relay at 9.17pm should be fun, Kadeena Cox will be following up her cycling gold medals by going in the heats for the women’s 400m T38 and we’ll see world record holder New Zealand’s Holly Robinson up against defending Rio champion, I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here’s Hollie Arnold, in the F46 javelin 🥇
10am Archery – the competition at the Yumenoshima Final Field on Friday is the men’s individual recurve. Defending champion from Iran Gholamreza Rahimi looks well-placed, he broke the Paralympic record on the ranking round, and has a bye through to the quarter-final stage 🥇
10am Taekwondo – Britain’s Beth Munro is among those fighting it out in the women’s K44 -58kg competition. The men will contest the K44 -75kg category. The bronze medal and gold medal bouts start at 8pm 🥇
10am Wheelchair tennis – there are five matches to be staged. Third on centre court at the Ariake Tennis Park will be Britain’s Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid going for men’s doubles gold against the defending champions, the French pair Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer. The day’s last match is the gold medal final for the women’s singles, as Japan’s Yui Kamiji, a bronze medallist in Rio, faces Diede de Groot of the Netherlands. Sandwiched between them, Jordanne Whiley has a chance of bronze in the women’s singles 🥇
1.30pm and 3.15pm Shooting – first the women and then the men will contest the 50m rifle three positions SH1 finals 🥇
5pm Swimming – the finals session on Friday is the last swimming session of the Games, and 16 of the total of 146 gold medals will be awarded 🥇
5.15pm Wheelchair basketball – it is time for the men’s semi-finals. Spain face the US, then Japan take on Great Britain.
6.30pm Sitting volleyball – the women’s semi-finals will be between Brazil and the US, and then China and Canada.
As it stands
Here’s how the emoji table stood at 11pm Tokyo time
1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 77 🥈 46 🥉 42 total: 165
2 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇34 🥈 27 🥉 34 total: 95
3 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇32 🥈 23 🥉 42 total: 97
4 🇺🇸 USA 🥇 27 🥈 30 🥉 22 total: 79
5 🇺🇦 Ukraine 🥇 20 🥈 39 🥉 24 total: 83
6 🇧🇷 Brazil 🥇 19 🥈 13 🥉 21 total: 53
7 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 19 🥈 11 🥉 11 total: 41
8 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 17 🥈 23 🥉 26 total: 66
9 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 13 🥈 25 🥉 20 total: 58
10 🇧🇷 Azerbaijan 🥇 11 🥈 1 🥉 4 total: 16
Useful links
Interactive medal table | Full results service | Paralympic Games classification guide
Get in touch
Having finished work for the day yesterday I went out to walk the dog, and I was about halfway across the park when suddenly in neon lights the name Sophie Pascoe flashed up in my mind. I realised I had meant to write about her. She won gold for New Zealand in Wednesday’s women’s 200m SM9 individual medley, which was her fourth medal of these Games and her second gold. Sarah Tapper in New Zealand noticed the omission and gently suggested to me via email that Pascoe had deserved a shout-out, so here it is.
Wednesday’s win was the eleventh of her career, which started with a gold in Beijing in 2008 as a 15-year-old. After yesterday’s race she said “I left it all out there, and some of it on the side of the pool. I can say you have witnessed my last ever 200 IM, I will be cutting the events down now, so it’s nice to finish on a positive and with a gold.” After the race yesterday Pascoe vomited, passed out and the was given oxygen. She got up again this morning and qualified for Friday’s women’s 100m Butterfly S9 final, where she finished fifth.
Don’t forget you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com, and, as it is a Thursday, if you have a couple of minutes to spare, you could also do the silly quiz I write each week for the Guardian website.
The last word
I couldn’t have imagined having eight Games, let alone winning medals at every Games, and 17 of those medals being gold. It’s the dream I didn’t have coming true. I just wanted to be a British athlete, I wanted to compete for my country for as long as I possibly could, and to still be going strong in Games number eight is truly amazing. I never felt a weight on my shoulders. It is the sweetest feeling to know that I go back to my room and there’s a couple of gold medals in the safe to put this one with and that makes that tally very real then. – Sarah Storey
