ParalympicsGB's gold rush continues on day nine with 18 more medals

Alice Tai, Claire Cashmore, Stephanie Slater and Stephanie Millward celebrate their 4x100m golds
Getty Images
Matt McGeehan17 September 2016

Great Britain's extraordinary success at the Rio Paralympics continued on Friday, with nine gold medals taking the haul to 58.

ParalympicsGB could win more golds than at every Games bar one after the total medal tally climbed to 126 with 18 medals on day nine.

After golds in archery, boccia and wheelchair tennis on Friday, Britain now have gold medals in 11 sports.

It could be 12 on Saturday as sailor Helena Lucas leads ahead of the final race in the one-person keelboat.

In Pictures: Great Britain's medal run at Rio 2016 Paralympics

1/145

Lucas in April 2015 was the first athlete to be selected for Britain's Olympic or Paralympic teams for Rio and victory for the 37-year-old from Surrey would be an ideal finale to a stellar sporting summer in Rio.

There are numerous gold medal opportunities on Saturday's penultimate day, not least for Dame Sarah Storey as she bids for her third gold of Rio 2016 and 14th of her career in the C4/C5 road race.

Sophie Christiansen, her fellow equestrian rider Natasha Baker and wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft each already have three gold medals from the XV Paralympics.

Wheelchair racer David Weir is a six-time Paralympic champion and won four of four titles at London 2012. His has been a "terrible" Games, by his own admission, but victory in Sunday's marathon could see Britain level or even climb above the haul of 65 gold medals won in Seoul 28 years ago.

Only the total of 107 golds from the New York/Stoke Mandeville Games of 1984 seems beyond this team.

One caveat in the medal count is that the Russian team is absent, banned by the International Paralympic Committee for state-sponsored doping. Russia finished second in the London 2012 medal table, behind China and one place ahead of Britain.

But ParalympicsGB's success has been phenomenal nonetheless.

When Cockroft won T34 800 metres gold - after her 100m and 400m wins earlier in the Games - Britain equalled the haul of 120 from London 2012.

Less than two seconds later they surpassed it - and the target dictated by funding partners UK Sport - as 15-year-old Kare Adenegan from Coventry took bronze.

An established star led one with supreme potential. ParalympicsGB hope the momentum will continue from here to Tokyo 2020 and beyond.

Britain began the day on 49 gold medals and 108 in all, before Paul Blake won a 50th gold in the T36 400m. It was only the third time in British Paralympic history that the team has passed 50 gold medals - and the first since the British Paralympic Association was formed in 1989.

Blake could add another on Saturday over two laps of the athletics track.

David Smith, his hair dyed blue, claimed his first individual Paralympic title in the BC1 boccia final and the imperious equestrian team ensured Britain won a best-ever haul of seven dressage gold medals. There were also four silvers.

After Lee Pearson won the grade Ib freestyle title - for his 11th Paralympic gold - Christiansen won the grade Ia equivalent ahead of team-mate Anne Dunham.

Natasha Baker completed her hat-trick by winning the grade II freestyle event, while Sophie Wells - the fourth member of the victorious team; Pearson was not selected - took grade IV silver.

Christiansen now has eight Paralympic titles. Baker has five.

Baker joked she felt sorry for Britain's rivals after a haul of 11 medals across the equestrian competition.

She said: "I feel sorry for hearing our national anthem so many times. It's just incredible. It's been an amazing competition."

Gordon Reid beat team-mate Alfie Hewett 6-1 6-2 in the men's wheelchair tennis singles final in another one-two finish for Britain.

Wimbledon champion Reid said: "There's actually a picture of (Olympic champion) Andy Murray as you go out on to Centre Court and when I watched him win gold here last month, I knew I wanted to do the same.

"I'm honoured to be talked about in the same breath as him. The Olympians inspired us by getting the job done here in Rio.

"(And) as a team we've smashed our medal target."

John Walker then won individual compound gold, to ensure Britain had won a gold medal in archery, as well as athletics, boccia, cycling, canoe, equestrian, rowing, swimming, triathlon, table tennis and wheelchair tennis. Britain won gold medals in seven sports at London 2012; it is 11 here.

Walker was inspired to get into archery by watching American Matt Stutzman competing at London 2012. Stutzman was born without arms.

And now the 42-year-old from Welwyn Garden City is Paralympic champion after a 141-139 defeat of David Drahoninsky of the Czech Republic.

The day ended with Steph Millward winning her second gold, anchoring the 34-point 4x100m medley relay team which included Alice Tai, Claire Cashmore and Steph Slater to victory in a world record time.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in