It was a fantastic start to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games for the Great Britain Cycling Team as Daphne Schrager and Steve Bate and pilot Chris Latham brought home the first two medals of the competition in their respective individual pursuit events.
Women’s C1-3 individual pursuit
Debutant Daphne Schrager kicked off the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games bagging ParalympicsGB’s first medal of the Games, with a silver in the women’s C1-3 individual pursuit.
In qualifying, Schrager rode a conservative first kilometre before gradually putting the power down, slowly closing the gap between her and the fastest finisher. A powerful last kilometre saw her shave an incredible 6.55 seconds off her own C2 world record with a time of 3:45.133 to put her in the evening’s gold medal ride against China’s Xiaomei Wang.
The final saw Daphne start conservatively, before putting down the power in the later laps, but was not quite able to overturn Wang, seeing Schrager take a silver as her first Paralymic medal.
After the event, Schrager said:
“I’m very privileged to have got a medal at all and to do it in front of my family and friends and the whole team is an amazing achievement.
“If you had asked me a year ago, I’d have bitten your arm off for a medal. A whole army is behind us and gets us to this point, I could count 30 people who have helped me get here and this medal goes to all of them.
“I could feel she (gold medallist Xiaomei Weng) was coming, and I knew I didn’t have any more to give. I gave it everything and I broke my world record in the process, I’m so happy I did that. She was just better on the day.”
Men’s B individual pursuit
Steve Bate and Chris Latham stormed to a sensational silver medal in the men’s B individual pursuit, breaking the world record in the process.
A strong qualifying round against Dutch rider Vincent ter Schure and his pilot saw the British pair of Bate and Latham catch their rivals with just under a lap to go, before setting a spectacular world record time of 3:56.435 over the 4km distance. However, the record was short-lived as previous world record holders Tristan Bangma and pilot Patrick Bos went on to take it back with a time of 3:55.396, putting them head-to-head in the gold medal final.
The Brits delivered a smooth final ride, staying close to the Dutch duo in the first half, but were not quite able to overthrow the dominant pair, taking a silver medal in their first Paralympic Games competing together.
On their medal, Latham said:
"The medal represents nine months of hard graft and a massive team effort. I'm proud of the silver but I wanted to do it for those guys who have stood behind us and put this ride together for us. We're just the lucky guys who are on the bike. It's the staff behind us who have really driven this project and I'm super proud of them. We gave it everything, we had to try to beat the Dutch guys but they proved how world class they are."
Tandem pairs Neil Fachie piloted by Matt Rotherham and James Ball piloted by Steffan Lloyd finished 13th and 15th respectively in the men’s B individual pursuit and will compete again on Sunday in the men’s B 1km time-trial.
Women’s C4-5 500m time-trial
It was heartbreak for Paralympic favourite Kadeena Cox after qualifying second fastest in the women’s C4-5 500m time-trial with a time of 35:914 seconds. An unsteady start out of the gate, saw Cox contend with the bike to try and regain control and get back into the race, but unfortunately she became too unsteady and came off the bike, ultimately ending her competition in sixth place.
The second day of competition will see the men’s C4-5 1km time-trial, men’s C2 3000m individual pursuit, men’s C3 3000m individual pursuit and women’s B 1km time-trial from 10:30 BST.
