Day three of the Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo brought medal success on the track and in the pool for the Scots on the ParalympicsGB team.
Athletics
SDS Young Persons Sports Panel member, Maria Lyle, was the first Scot on the track in the Olympic Stadium today and she set a season’s best of 14.34 in her T35 100m heat. She was to improve on this time in the final, later in the day, setting a time of 14.18 to take a fantastic bronze medal. China’s Zhou Xia took the gold with a world record time of 13.00 seconds while Australia’s Isis Holt claimed silver.
Having just taken ParalympicsGB’s first athletics medal of Tokyo 2020, Maria said;
“That feels so good, I’m so happy with a bronze medal. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew I was in good shape, a season’s best and a medal is more than I can ask for.”
“I’ve tried not to think about this race until today and I just wanted to enjoy it.”
“This has been five years of really hard work. The last 18 months have been so hard trying to understand if the Paralympics were even going to happen.”
Swimming
Stephen Clegg was already a World and European medallist heading into Tokyo 2020, so hopes were high as he took to the pool for his S12 100m Backstroke final. Stephen’s favoured event is the S12 100m Butterfly, in which he holds a world record, but he proved that every race is a podium opportunity, pacing himself well be well in contention for the medals in the final length. Stephen touched in a time of 1:01.27 to beat his own British record and take the bronze medal.
Speaking of the feeling of taking his maiden Paralympic medal, Stephen said;
“I was really happy with that. It’s more of an event for me to get into the meet, I had a really open mind coming into it, so a medal is amazing and it’s a small personal best too – I’m really pleased with that,”
Speaking of the support of his family, Stephen continued;
“We’re all individual athletes (Stephen’s brother James is a former Paralympic swimmer, while sister Libby is out in Tokyo with the athletics team). We’re all there to support each other. I know my brother will be back home watching me and my sister’s back in the village, so I can’t wait to go and show her the medal!”
Meanwhile, Scotland’s Andrew Mullen continued his Paralympic campaign in the men’s S5 50m Butterfly. Andrew had not swam this event competitively for over three years and the City of Glasgow Swim Team swimmer finished 11th overall in a season’s best time of 39.01.
Following his race Andrew said:
“That wasn’t too bad. I’ve actually not swam the 50m fly competitively for an awfully long time. It’s just really another event to get into the feel of the competition, the flow of the call-room, the warm-up etc. My main focus coming into the meet has always been to help the 20pt relay guys qualify for the final and then focus on my 50m back later in the week.”
Archery
The archery programme got underway today at the Yumenoshima Park venue. Scotland’s, Nathan McQueen was in action in the Men’s Individual Compound Open Ranking Round scoring 680 points from his 72 arrows. This resulted in a 22nd place finish to set up a clash with Russia’s Nail Gatin in the round of 32 tomorrow.
Wheelchair Basketball
After back-to-back defeats in their opening matches of the Women’s Wheelchair Basketball competition Scotland’s Robyn Love and Jude Hamer were back on court with ParalymicsGB to face a German side who had won their only Group A match to date. It proved to be a tough match once again for the ParalympicsGB side with the Germans leading 30-17 after two quarters at the Musashino Forest Sport Plaza. This was a lead that they would not relinquish, eventually winning the match 53-35.
ParalympicsGB’s next match will be tomorrow at the Ariake Arena when they face Australia.
Scotland’s medal tally at the Tokyo Games has now risen to five with two silver and three bronze.
Photo – courtesy of imagecomms
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