And that’s just two of the stories to come out of Rio after just four days.
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The Paralympic Games seem to be a hit with locals.
Halifax’s Hannah Cockroft celebrates winning gold in the Women’s 100m T34 Final.
Nigeria is also competing in para-athletics, which has yielded one gold medal so far, and para table tennis. The Iranian team, comprising Ebrahim Ranjbar and Zahra Nemati, failed to overcome Lixue Zhao and Chunyan Wu of China in the finals and conceded a 3-5 defeat to win one more silver medal for the Iranian outfit.
Henson said after his medal on Sunday: “Five and a half years ago I almost died”.
Fox added: “It’s been a long time coming, it just feels fantastic”. I’m glad that I’ve done it. “I took a lot from London, the build-up and the hype was huge and I probably fell foul of not rowing my own race and sticking to my own plan. It’s insane how loud it gets in there, it either helps or hinders you and it helped me and drove me on”.
“I absolutely dug in and gave it everything”.
Four time gold medallist Hongzhuan Zhou, 27, also receives relatively little media attention despite setting a new world record in Rio in the 400m T53 wheelchair race.
The event was factored in her favour, so her time was rounded down to 34.598secs, but she was quicker than everyone else regardless. “Now I’m a Paralympic Champion”, she said. Stef, born in New Zealand to a Scottish father and English mother, is a five-time world record holder and current European long jump champion. Dame Sarah Storey finished fourth. It was her cycling debut. Kare Adenegan, who is 15 and from Coventry, took silver.
After taking the top prize for the first time at a Paralympics he told the Press Association it was an “amazing” feeling.
“Now I feel the pressure is off”.
The 31-year-old said: “Rio 2016 was always the aim but some people thought Tokyo was more realistic”.
“When I came across that finish line, I held the tape in the air and wondered whether it was all real. There were days when I could have walked away some days but for the end prize to be Paralympic gold, I would have done it again in a heartbeat”, he said.
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Rachel Morris started Britain’s golden day with victory in the arms-shoulders single sculls.
