Earlier Natasha Baker won gold in the II dressage and her scores, combined with Christiansen, Dunham and Sophie Wells – who won the IV title yesterday – meant ParalympicsGB continued their long domination of the team event, a winning run dating back to 1996.
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Wheelchair tennis star and second seed Yui Kamiji got over her semifinal disappointment to take bronze – her and Japan’s first women’s Paralympic wheelchair tennis medal – by beating Diede de Groot of the Netherlands, 6-3, 6-3.
It was proving to be another golden day for GB in Brazil following their six golds – three in canoeing and three in equestrian – on Thursday’s eighth day of competition which took ParalympicsGB’s gold medal tally to 49 and 108 in all with three days left.
Paul Blake claimed Britain’s 50th gold of the XV Paralympics in the T34 400 metres athletics on Friday morning and David Smith won the 51st with boccia victory. Walker brought the total tally to 123.
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.
Elsewhere, Kadeena Cox narrowly missed out on her third gold medal in Rio, settling for silver as part of the T35-38 4x100m final, with China taking first place.
“It’s been an incredible competition”.
Christiansen will now look to repeat her gold medal hat-trick from London 2012 in today’s freestyle competitions. London was just so, so special for me, so to retain that title – I just can’t believe it.
“I don’t know if people that age [17] feel any pain when they swim”.
In another success for the Iranian delegation, the Iranian men’s national 7-a-side football team humiliated Brizilians 5-1 at the semi-final on Wednesday to line up against Ukraine on Friday in a match in quest of the gold medal.
Two of her three golds came in new events, the 400m and 800m.
The 26-year-old from Dorchester, 400m silver medallist and 800m bronze winer at London 2012, benefited from the absence of the 2012 champion Evgenii Shvetsov, who beat him at last year’s World Championships in Doha and is the world record holder. His has been a “terrible” Games, by his own admission, but victory in Sunday’s marathon could see Britain level or even climb above the haul of 65 gold medals won in Seoul 28 years ago. David Blair of the United States of America took gold with a world record of 64.11m as GB’s Dan Greaves won bronze with 59.57m.
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“Forty percent I’m happy, but 60 percent I’m disappointed”.
