The Iranian and Paralympic flags in the athletes’ village were lowered to half-staff, and there was a moment of silence for Golbarnezhad in Sunday’s closing ceremony.
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The closing ceremony of the Rio Paralympic Games paid tribute to Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad, who died following a crash on Saturday’s penultimate day of competition.
Brazilian officials handed over the flag to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games as the 11 day long global sports event ended today.
Ukraine won 117 medals at Rio, behind Britain (147) and China (239).
It featured Fujio Watanabe, a table tennis gold medalist in that Paralympic Games, who said he was inspired by the attitude of overseas disabled athletes at the time who enjoyed their lives just as much as people who are not physically challenged.
“The Paralympic Family is united in grief at this horrendous tragedy which casts a shadow over what have been great Paralympic Games here in Rio”, Philip Craven, the committee’s president, said in a statement.
Then Ricardinho, the star of Brazil’s gold medal winning five-a-side Paralympic football team, brought out the national flag.
The curtain came down Sunday on the Rio Paralympics, the largest multisport event for athletes with disabilities held for the first time in South America.
“But not for Rio and Brazil”, he said, wishing good luck to Tokyo, who will be the next city to host the Games.
Gold medallist Ellie Simmonds believes the closeness of the ParalympicsGB squad played a huge part in the team’s success in Rio.
“We are celebrating you now because you have done this country proud”. The country had finished 11th with 10 gold medals, seven silvers and seven bronze medals in the previous edition of the Paralympics in London four years ago.
By the end, officials said, they had sold 2.1 million tickets – fewer than London in 2012 but more than Beijing four years earlier.
Powerlifter Lidiya Solovyova won a gold medal in Rio.
Retiring Australian co-captain Kurt Fearnley took centre stage as his election to the International Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Council was announced.
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Success from our region came in the form Jody Cundy, who won two golds, Alfie Hewett with two silvers and Jessica-Jane Applegate who won two silvers and a bronze.
