The equestrian rider Lee Pearson, who won his 11th gold medal as well as a silver in Rio, said he was surprised by the huge reception: “I think I was one of the first through, the screaming was petrifying and humbling at the same time”. He wished good luck to Tokyo, who will be the next city to host the games.
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The closing ceremony which was to pay tribute to Bahman Golbarnezhad, an Iranian cyclist who died on Saturday saw singers, dancers and fireworks lit up the Maracanã stadium. Russian Federation was suspended from the Rio Paralympics by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in early August for failure to comply with the organization’s anti-doping rules.
The Queen has praised Britain’s Paralympic athletes, describing their achievements as a “magnificent performance” in a message sent to the sportsmen and women.
With Brazil hit by political turmoil and recession, Mr. Nuzman conceded it had been a “mission of many doubts”, but was happy to declare the event as being “mission accomplished”.
Eleven days of competition where China dominated the medals table, followed by Britain, Ukraine and the United States, ended earlier on Sunday with the last few events, including marathons and wheelchair rugby.
As Craven declared the Games over – with Tokyo now taking up the baton for 2020 – he said Brazil had passed a hard test. Does it mean that our performance at Rio 2016 was a failure?
Britain confirmed its place as a sporting powerhouse by coming second in both the Olympic and Paralympic medal tables. The country won more medals in athletics-33 in total.
China topped the medal standings, becoming only the third country to win more than 100 gold medals at a single Paralympic Games. At Rio they won medals across 18 sports while in London they won medals across 16 sports.
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Accordingly, Iran’s Paralympic caravan managed to scoop eight gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals to stand in the 15th place in Rio with a total of 24 medals.
