Wheelchair racer takes two-lap title in Rio as ParalympicsGB surpass London 2012 medal haul
Leading from gun to tape in the T34 800m, Hannah Cockroft took her third gold of the Rio Paralympics.
The Briton clocked 2:00.62 to win easily from Alexa Halko of the United States as Cockroft’s GB team-mate Kare Adenegan took bronze in a PB of 2:02.47.
“I didn’t believe I could do this as I really don’t like the 800m! I hope they get rid of this event,” said Cockroft, who had already won 100m and 400m golds in Rio. “But it was amazing fun out there and I’m ready to go again out there. Although that’s me done for the year now so I’ll see you all in London 2017!”
Adenegan said: “I’ve done a PB in all my events and when I saw 2:02 I thought ‘wow, that’s a two-second PB for me’.”
It meant ParalympicsGB overtook their medal haul achieved in London four years ago.“This truly inspirational group of Paralympic athletes have picked up the baton from their Olympic counterparts and continued the outstanding success at Rio 2016,” said Rod Carr, chair of UK Sport, as he reacted to the news.
There was another medal for Britain as well in the men’s F44 discus. David Blair of the USA took gold with a world record of 64.11m as GB’s Dan Greaves won bronze with 59.57m.
“I never thought I’d be happy with bronze, but I am,” said Greaves. “It’s my fifth consecutive Paralympics medal in what’s going to be my last Paralympics as I’m not getting any younger. But I want to bow out in front of a home crowd in London next year.”
Elsewhere, China’s Liu Cuiqing took the T11 400m in 56.71 as Terezinha Guilhermina of the host nation Brazil took bronze.
IPC world champion Samir Nouioua of Algeria won the T46 1500m title in 3:59.47 with a fast final lap. Sebastian Dietz of Germany won the men’s F36 shot in a Paralympic record of 14.84m.
Full results can be found here.
» See the September 22 issue of Athletics Weekly for more
