It was a cloudy and blustery day nine of the Rio 2016 Paralympics, where 59 gold medals were won in events including women’s wheelchair basketball, men’s wheelchair tennis singles and athletics.
Scroll down for Friday’s highlights.
Guilhermina bows out with bronze
Brazil’s golden girl of athletics, Terezinha Guilhermina, ended her Rio 2016 roller coaster ride with third place in the T11 400-meter final.
The 37-year-old qualified for the 100m and 200m finals earlier in the competition but was disqualified in both, recording a false start and also being illegally pulled by her guide.
A silver medal in the T11-13 4x100m final softened the blow, and a bronze in her last appearance at her home Games ensured she finished on a high note.
Guilhermina started the race strongly and built a commanding lead but, coming into the final straight, her legs began to tire and she was overtaken by China’s Cuiqing Liu and Venezuelan runner Sol Rojas.
Despite the fact she’ll be the other side of 40 come Tokyo 2020, Guilhermina — who won three gold, one silver and two bronzes from previous Paralympics in Athens, Beijing and London — has no intention of retiring just yet.
“We now go in search of another cycle. I am very happy to have reached all the finals in Rio 2016 and also to have won this medal,” she told reporters after her race.
“I had an injury, but managed to recover in time for the Games. I thank the physiotherapists for it and for the good results.
“We start working now. We hope to be in Tokyo 2020.”
Family of stars
His father is a star on screen, best known for his role playing Greedo, a bounty hunter who first appeared in the original “Star Wars” movie: “Episode IV — A New Hope.” His mother is a former dancer with the Royal Ballet.
But Paul Blake is a star in his own right on the track — Britain’s three-time world champion has won his first Paralympic gold medal in the men’s T36 400m, a category for athletes with coordination impairments.
The 26-year-old, who has cerebral palsy, led the race from the outset, fending off a hard chase from Poland’s Krzysztof Ciuksza to power over the finish line meters clear of his competitors and improve on the silver he won in the event at London 2012.
Tiring after the bend, 18-year-old Ciuksza was overtaken by Ukraine’s 2008 champion Roman Pavlyk for the silver medal and New Zealand’s William Stedman, 16, for the bronze.
Blake’s win took Britain’s Paralympic gold medal total to 50 for the first time since 1988.
Reid reigns in Rio
Gordon Reid added Paralympic gold to the silver medal he won Thursday with doubles partner Alfie Hewett.
However, with roles reversed, the pair were facing off on opposite sides of the net.
Scotsman Reid overcame Hewett 6-2 6-1 to add the Paralympic title to the Wimbledon and Australian Open grand slams he won earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the United States claimed gold in the women’s wheelchair basketball, beating Germany 62-45 in the final.
Ruzhdi on the rise
Ruzhdi Ruzhdi is on a roll.
The 25-year-old Bulgarian has no movement in his lower limbs, but he has soared up the shot put and discus rankings in recent times.
At London 2012, just two years after he took up para-athletics, he finished 15th in shot put and 11th in discus.
But three years later at the 2015 IPC World Championships, Ruzhdi won the shot put title.
At June’s European Championships, he won gold in both events, setting a world record of 12.04 meters in the shot put and a championship record of 39.33m in the F56 discus.
In his Rio 2016 discus event, Ruzhdi set a Paralympic record for his F55 class — though he finished sixth overall as Brazil’s gold medalist Batista dos Santos, an F56 competitor, also set a Games best.
On Friday, Ruzhdi won his first Paralympic medal in the shot put, throwing 12.33m to smash his own world record and clinch the gold by almost a meter’s margin.
His wasn’t the only world record in the event — runner-up Hamed Amiri of Iran threw 11.40m to set the mark in the F54 category.
Poland’s Lech Stoltman won the bronze with 11.39m.
