T44 100m sprinter Jonnie Peacock won gold with an utterly devastating performance to retain his Paralympic title.
Peacock, 23, has dealt with injuries and inconsistency as a result of a brave move to change parts of his technique but came through strongest last night for ParalympicsGB.
Peacock’s victory helped ParalympicsGB, who won three of their gold medals in nine minutes, take their medal tally to 27, including 12 golds.
The ease of Peacock’s result was contrasted by the twists and turns of Libby Clegg’s campaign (with guide Chris Clarke) who broke the World Record en route to winning the T11 100m, after being reinstated following an earlier disqualification.
Georgie Hermitage, meanwhile, set a World Record of 13.13 seconds to win the T37 100m title before 19 year-old Sophie Hahn won her T38 100m final in 12.62 with fellow Brit, Kadeena Cox finishing third.
In the pool, one of the youngest ParalympicsGB athletes, Ellie Robinson, 15, set a Paralympic Record to win the women’s 50m Butterfly S6 in 35.58 seconds while Steph Slater claimed silver in the women’s 100m Butterfly S8.
“It’s so weird, it’s not sunk in yet,” Robinson said afterwards. “I feel like someone’s going to say: ‘Ellie, wake up.’ I put everything I have done in training into that race and it’s going to be weird to go back to school as a Paralympic Champion.”
Away from the athletics, cyclist Sophie Thornhill, with pilot Helen Scott won the Women’s B C4-5 1,000m Time Trial tandem event in the velodrome with a Games Record and it was great to see Jody Cundy dispatch his 2012 disqualification demons as he raced to the gold in the C4-5 1km Time Trial.
There were also successes for Stef Reid (T44 Long Jump), Ali Jawad (59kg powerlifting) and Steph Slater (100m butterfly S8 swimming) who won silvers, while club thrower Gemma Prescott (F32 Club Throw), powerlifter, Zoe Newson (45kg), Susannah Rodgers (S7 50m Freestyle Swimming), Lewis White (S9 400m Freestyle Swimming) and Louis Rolfe (C2 3,000m Pursuit, Track Cycling) secured bronze medals.
In other news, Irish sprinter, Jason Smyth (from Northern Ireland) matched the Jamaican Olympian, Usain Bolt by winning his third consecutive Paralympic gold.
After claiming the T13 100m title in Beijing and London, Smyth made it three in a row yesterday, finishing 0.14s ahead of Namibia’s Johannes Nambala in a time of 10.64s, making him officially the fastest Paralympian of all time!