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.
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Cole takes home six medals from Rio, winning her third silver on Friday after joining with Lakeisha Patterson, Maddison Elliott and Madeleine Scott in her women’s 4x100m medley relay.
Ibrahim did not win a medal but says just being in Brazil “was the reward”.
Britain’s first gold medal in the pool on Wednesday night was won by Michael Jones in the S7 400m freestyle, with team-mate Jonathan Fox taking silver. Half of the plastic in the ribbons which will be used to hang the medals around athletes’ necks comes from recycled plastic bottles.
Orla Barry won Ireland’s eighth medal of the Paralympics with silver in the F57 discus.
The 26-year old, who had to settle for silver in London four years ago, went one better this time as he raced to victory in a season’s best time of 54.49 seconds despite the rainy conditions, beating his main rival and old adversary, Ukraine’s Roman Pavlyk into second place by over a second.
Such Paralympic accomplishments are a far cry from the Emirates’ record at the Olympic Games, where Sergiu Toma, a Moldovan-born judoka, won the UAE only its second medal in history when he claimed bronze in Rio last month.
One caveat in the medal count is that the Russian team is absent, banned by the International Paralympic Committee for state-sponsored doping.
Gold medal winners also included Paul Blake in the T34 400m athletics, David Smith in BC1 boccia and John Walker in the men’s individual compound.
“Someday I will tell my sons, “Cafu said I am a very good player”.
The three-time Paralympian said it’s getting harder to compete against youngsters like 17-year-old Spaniard Nuria Marques Soto who came second, and 16-year-old American Hannah Aspden who took bronze.
Blake showed his own dedication to the film franchise with an excited Twitter post proudly displaying an autograph from the original movie’s leading actor Mark Hamill at the London Star Wars celebration in August.
“We have the best team in the world around us and there’s a great spirit in the camp”.
“But in the Paralympics, we have more of a chance because of the different disabilities and classifications”. And the team has excelled.
The medal target set by UK Sport, the British Paralympic Association, was 121 – or more medals than at London 2012. Our athletes will continue to focus on what they need to do in order to finish the Games in the manner that we have started. “London was just so, so special for me, so to retain that title I just can’t believe it”, she said.
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“I’m very happy with my achievements here”.
