Rio de Janeiro, Sep 19 (IANS) The president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Philip Craven, was among those to pay tribute to Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad during the Paralympic Games closing ceremony here.
Advertisement
Gold medalist Curtis McGrath carried the Australian flag during the 2016 Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony at the Macaraña Stadium.
She landed four medals, two of them gold, at her maiden Games, two years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Great Britain closed the Rio Paralympics with 64 gold medals, the most by a British team since 1988.
The penultimate day of the Rio 2016 Games saw Team SA earn their final three medals, with Dyan Buis emulating fellow South African Wayde van Niekerk by winning gold in the 400m T38 final while setting a new Games record in a time of 49.43 seconds. China had a total of 239 medals, in which 107 Gold, 81 Silver, 51 Bronze.
This was a record-high number of athletes at a Paralympics, even though powerhouse Russian Federation was excluded from the event as the IPC had imposed a blanket ban on athletes from the country at Rio over systematic doping cover-ups.
With the three golds and a bronze, Malaysia are ranked 36th in the final medal tally among the 170 countries taking part in the Games.
Masoud Ashrafi, the secretary general of Iran’s National Paralympic Committee, told the Press Association: “There is one bitterness and one sweetness”.
Swimmer Jo Gi-seong gestures after winning the men’s 50-m freestyle final at the Rio 2016 Paralympics in Brazil on Sunday. The Australian Olympic Team brought home 29 medals-eight gold, 11 silver and 10 bronze-after competing in the 15-day event.
Four years ago, at the London Paralympics, Boki won six medals, five of them being gold and one silver.
The Iran team had a picture of Golbarnezhad with them for the medal presentation.
“I’m so glad to have won a silver medal”, said Michishita, who made her Paralympics debut in Rio.
“That bodes well for our future and we’re trying to develop table tennis as well as badminton in our smaller developing countries because badminton is a new sport for (the 2020 Paralympics in) Tokyo and we are trying to look at sports that take little equipment, little infrastructure but maximise opportunities”.
The Australian defending Paralympic and world champions include Ryley Batt, who’s sometimes referred to as the LeBron James of wheelchair rugby and widely regarded as one of the best players the sport has ever seen.
Advertisement
They cheered, sang and erupted into spontaneous Mexican waves in the legendary Maracana Stadium on Sunday night (Sept 18 in Brazil) to celebrate persons with disabilities.
