He wished good luck to Tokyo, who will be the next city to host the games.
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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.
In respect to their compatriot, sitting volleyball team carried a photo of late Golbarnejad onto the court.
“Tonight is a celebration of the last 12 days of sport but it’s also a very sombre occasion following Saturday’s extremely tragic events”, Craven said, upon opening his speech.
Among the first performers was Jonathan Bastos, a Brazilian who was born without arms but has became an accomplished musician, playing instruments with his feet.
Referring to the political turmoil and recession weighing Brazil down as it put on the first Olympics in South America, Mr Nuzman conceded it had been a “mission of many doubts”.
However, in the Olympic Games, the US were the most impressive team, being the leader of the medal count ranking, with 121 medals won by the athletes. The Chinese won a total of 239 medals: 107 gold, 81 silver, and 51 bronze.
“I’m incredibly proud that our coverage and marketing of the Games has both helped change public perceptions of people with impairments and encouraged broadcasters around the world to show Paralympic sport”, he continued, adding: “I’m delighted to be extending our partnership with the IPC and the worldwide Paralympic movement and I know everyone at Channel 4 will be thrilled at the prospect of raising the bar even higher than before in PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020”.
Russian athletes were absent – banned by the International Paralympic Committee for state-sponsored doping – but British athletes could only face the opposition present.
The 11 gold medal-winning sports – archery, athletics, boccia, cycling, canoeing, equestrian, rowing, swimming, table tennis, triathlon and wheelchair tennis – equals the record held by China from the 2008 Games in Beijing. The eldest and youngest athletes in ParalympicsGB – 67-year-old equestrian rider Anne Dunham and swimmer Abby Kane, 13 – claimed medals.
“I have never cried on a podium before that is how emotional the games have been and how much these medals have meant to me this time”.
The 45-person team managed an impressive medal haul of seven gold, six silver and four bronze medals, allowing the country to achieve a 22nd place finish on the overall medal table.
Although NBC live-streamed numerous Paralympic events on TeamUSA.org, the dearth of accredited American journalists and photographers covering the games (29 versus more than 400 for the Olympics) meant that many Americans were unaware that Team USA finished fourth in the overall medal count, its best showing in the Paralymics since 1996.
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Britain’s Olympic athletes won 27 golds in 15 sports, and 67 medals in total, easily surpassing UK Sport’s pre-Games target of at least 48 medals.
