Hannah Cockroft and Nick Mayhugh yesterday enjoyed yet more golden success on the athletics track as the successful staging of the Paralympics Games was lauded as “remarkable” on the penultimate day in Tokyo, while Taiwan’s participation ended, leaving the nation with a solitary medal.
Britain’s Cockroft won her seventh Paralympics gold, while Mayhugh of the US said he wanted to be the “Usain Bolt of the Paralympics” after claiming his third Tokyo gold.
“Hurricane Hannah” clocked 1 minute, 48.99 seconds in the T34 800m, obliterating her own Paralympic Games record set in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 by almost 12 seconds.
Photo courtesy of the Sports Administration
“I don’t think it will ever sink in,” Cockroft said of winning her second Tokyo gold to go with her three golds at Rio and two from London in 2012. “Not many athletes get the privilege of doing this for 10 years or get to stand on the podium that many times.”
Mayhugh smashed his own world record, set only the day before, to take gold in the men’s T37 200m in 21.91 seconds.
“I know I’ll never be able to run 9.5 for the 100m, but I want to be the Usain Bolt of the Paralympics,” said the former soccer player, who also took gold in the 100m and Friday’s night’s 4x100m universal relay.
Photo: Reuters
He won silver in the 400m event.
“You set your own limits. You believe in yourself and you set your own barrier and surpass it. Usain Bolt did exactly that with me. He was my greatest inspiration, so thank you to him.”
International Paralympic Committee spokesperson Craig Spence hailed “an amazing team effort” that had enabled the Games to take place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s remarkable. There were doubts in the past two years when I thought these Games weren’t going to happen,” Spence told reporters. “We took inspiration from our athletes. They seem to make the impossible possible. The sporting performances have been out of this world.”
However, Peter Genyn of Belgium said that his wheelchair had been sabotaged and had to be patched up with duct tape before he won the T51 100m late on Friday.
“We had just arrived 45 minutes before the warm-up and we had three flat tires and a broken compensator,” Genyn said. “The day before we had a flat front tire, and it looked like a knife, but we didn’t want to believe it.”
Cheah Liek Hou of Malaysia won the first Paralympics badminton gold in history when he beat Indonesia’s Dheva Anrimusthi 21-17, 21-15 in the men’s singles SU5 final at the Yoyogi National Stadium.
The sport is making its Paralympic Games debut in Tokyo, 29 years after being admitted to the Olympics.
Taiwan’s Fang Jen-yu was defeated twice yesterday, wrapping up Taiwan’s campaign at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
In his first match, Fang lost to Cheah in the semi-finals 21-15, 10-21, 16-21.
In the bronze-medal match against world No. 3 Suryo Nugroho of Indonesia, he went down 16-21, 9-21.
Fang told reporters after the matches that he still has much to learn, including from the sophisticated and skillful way his two opponents played.
He said he is happy to have been able to compete in Tokyo and hopes to win a medal at a major event.
Fang was the last of the 10 Taiwanese at the Games, which is to have its closing ceremony today.
Taiwan won one medal, a bronze to table tennis player Tien Shiau-wen in the women’s class 10 event.
Additional reporting by staff writer and CNA
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