RIO DE JANEIRO: Australia won a dramatic quad doubles final, staging a comeback to secure the first wheelchair tennis gold on another dramatic day at the 2016 Paralympic Games on Tuesday.
Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson’s 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory over Nick Taylor and David Wagner ended the Americans’ chances of a fourth successive gold medal in the doubles.
Alcott also secured the honour of becoming a two-sport gold medallist – he was a member of Australia’s victorious wheelchair basketball team in Beijing in 2008.
Alcott said the victory, which was secured in 2hrs 45mins, was testimony to the special comradery that exists between him and his partner.
On a busy day at the Olympic Tennis Centre, history was also made when the longest match in wheelchair tennis history.
Great Britain eventually overcame Israel in a gruelling 4hr 25min 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2), played in some of the hottest temperatures of the Paralympics so far, to secure the quad doubles bronze medal.
In the day’s athletics action, Kenya’s visually-impaired Para athlete Samwel Kimani and Thailand’s wheelchair racer Prawat Wahoram both completed the distance double, adding 1,500m gold to the 5,000m titles they have already won at Rio 2016.
Kimani won the men’s 1,500m T11, seeing off the challenge of Brazil’s multiple world champion Odair Santos. And Wahoram won a close men’s 1,500m T54, improving on the silver medal he won four years ago as he crossed the line just ahead of Switzerland’s Marcel Hug.
Superb
US middle-distance man Michael Brannigan, 19, ran a superb race to win his first Paralympic gold in the men’s 1,500m T20, controlling the race from the gun to take the win in 3:51.73.
And there was a clean sweep for the US in the women’s 1,500m T54 as Rio 2016 400m championTatyana McFadden was made to work hard by her American team-mates Amanda McGrory and Chelsea McClammer for her second gold of the Games.
In the men’s 100m T38, Jianwen Hu put in a blistering first 50m to smash Australian Evan O’Hanlon’s world record and take gold. And 18-year-old Yiting Shi tore through the field to win the women’s 200mT36 with a new lifetime best.
Brazil’s Felipe Gomes brought home gold for the host nation in the men’s 4x100m T11-13 relay final. And Belgium secured their first gold medal on the track as reigning world champion Peter Genyn (21.15) powered home to win the men’s 100m T51.