Day seven of the Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo brought further medal success in the pool for Scots on the ParalympicsGB team.
Swimming
Toni Shaw and Stephen Clegg were back in the pool on Tuesday as they sought to add to their medal tallies in the 100m Freestyle, with both having strong swims in their respective heats earlier in the day.
This was to set up further medal success for Stephen Clegg as he took Bronze in the S12 100m Freestyle (M) event as his successful games continued in fine style. Not only was it enough to secure his second medal in Tokyo, Stephen swam a British Record time of 53.43.
Stephen said: “It’s not an event I’ve worked on much & I was a bit naïve on how I wanted to swim it. So coming away with a medal is really exciting & shows I’m in great form for my butterfly.”
In the S9 100m Freestyle (W) final, Toni put in another good swim but feel narrowly short of adding to her medal tally as she came in 4th place in what was a very high quality final.
Toni Shaw: “Nobody likes to come fourth, but it’s such a competitive race”.
With more opportunities to come in Tokyo, it has been a very strong games for the first time Paralympian.
Boccia
Scott McCowan was back on court on Tuesday where he faced Brazilian De Olivieira at the quarter-final stage with Scott producing a dominant display in progressing to the semi-final stage later in the day with a convincing 9-1 victory.
Following this fantastic victory, Scott said: “It’s exactly the way I wanted to play, the way I dreamt of it panning out.”
Later in the afternoon Scott was back on court for his semi-final match against the Greek Polychronidis in what was to turn out to be an enthralling match. Trailing 4-1, Scott was able to launch a comeback to make it 4-4 and take the game to a tie-break where unfortunately for Scott he couldn’t quite see it through in a match decided by the very finest of margins.
A disappointed but proud Scott said: “I gave it everything, played the best in the tournament I’ve played, but unfortunately it just wasn’t enough today.”
Scott will now compete for a Bronze medal tomorrow.
Wheelchair Tennis
Gordon Reid MBE and his partner Alfie Hewitt have guaranteed themselves medal success in Tokyo as they cruised into the Men’s Doubles final with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Japanese pair Shingo Kunieda and Takashi Sanada. The win took just 87 minutes as the top seeds played some stunning tennis to set up an opportunity to go one better than their 2016 Silver medal in Rio.
A focused Gordon Reid said:
“We’re really, really happy at the moment. That match couldn’t have gone a lot better for us.
“We executed our game plan and our tactics really well and we didn’t let up at any point, especially towards the end when sometimes you can get a bit nervy.
“But that’s probably when we played some of our best tennis. We’re really pleased, but we’ve done nothing yet because we came here for the gold and we’ve still got to earn that.”
Gordon is back to Men’s Singles action tomorrow where he will compete for a place in the semi-final of that competition before Friday’s Gold Medal match.
Wheelchair Basketball
Scotland’s Robyn Love and Jude Hamer were back in action in the Women’s Wheelchair Basketball competition as GB Women took on China at the quarter final stage.
Unfortunately the Paralympic medal dream is over as they succumbed 47-33, where despite at one point looking like a brilliant comeback was on the cards, their shooting game was not quite on top and China saw the match out to reach the semi-final stage. GB Women will now go into a 7/8th place playoff to end their tournament in Tokyo.
Para-Cycling
There were a pair of agonisingly close finishes on the road for Scots Fin Graham and Jenny Holl, who piloted Sophie Unwin once again. Despite strong races, they both fell just short of medalling in Tuesday’s Time Trial events.
Fin had to settle for 4th place in the Men’s C3 Time Trial where an incredibly tight race saw 11 seconds separate 6 riders. Despite provisionally finishing in 3rd place, his time of 36.20 was just pipped by 2.9 seconds to push him out of the medal places.
In the Women’s C5 Time Trial, the tandem of Sophie Unwin and Scottish Pilot Jenny Holl competed in another tight race, with just 6 second separating 3 tandems at the second time check. Unfortunately the pair couldn’t push themselves into the medal places coming in 5th place.
Fin Graham will be aiming for success in his final event of the Games, the Men’s C1-3 Road Race, which takes place in the very early hours of Thursday morning (01:48 BST start). Sophie Unwin and her pilot Jenny Holl will also be targeting the Road Race after a couple of days well deserved rest – that Women’s B Road Race will take place on Friday morning at 09:00 BST.
With a further medal added on day 7, the Scottish medal count has increased to 12 with 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 12 Bronze.
Photo – courtesy of imagecomms