Four golds on memorable night in the pool

ParalympicsGB’s sensational week in the pool continued with four golds taking the tally to 11 - and a place at the top of the sport’s medal table. 

Having made it back-to-back 200m medley titles, Maisie Summers-Newton dominated the 100m breaststroke in Paralympic record time to do the double-double.

“It is what dreams are made of,” she said.

“When I was watching Ellie (Simmonds) in London 2012, never ever would I have thought I would come away with one Paralympic medal let alone four, so to come away from my second Paralympic Games defending both of my titles, I’m just so pleased.”

After her emotional reaction to settling for breaststroke silver went viral, Brock Whiston took 200m medley gold with Alice Tai taking bronze and USA’s four-time defending champion Jess Long trailing in fourth.

“I had something to prove to myself and I did it,” said Whiston. “I needed to beat the great Jess Long and I wanted to come out and show what I can do.

“When you’re racing against her, you know you’re racing one of the best Paralympians in the world so to come away and beat her is pretty special.”

Grace Harvey upgraded Tokyo silver to gold in the 100m breaststroke, a thrilling race that saw her beat China’s Zhang Li at the touch.

She was being roared on by a healthy contingent of family and friends, including her year 7 maths teacher, and said being able to call herself a Paralympic champion ‘means more than anything’.

“I’ve never dared imagine that I would ever be in this position,” she said. “I was always like ‘I just want to go out and do my own race’ but to finally finish first, it feels amazing.”

An amazing night was rounded off with a mixed 4x100m freestyle relay win courtesy of Will Ellard, Rhys Darbey, Poppy Maskill and Olivia Newman-Baronius.

The dominant success saw Ellard and Maskill add to their individual tallies while Darbey and Newman-Baronius were delighted to get off the mark for the week.

All four members of the team are under 20 and Darbey, 17, is already excited by seeing what heights they can go on to hit.

“It’s great, one race, one gold,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in LA, everyone in this team is under 20. Hopefully that world record can be ours in LA. I’ve got my 200 IM later on this week so to get this out the way is a relief and a weight off the shoulders.”

Maskill added: “There is pressure but in a different way. If you only let yourself down, it’s one thing, but if you let everyone else down it’s another. I just tried my hardest to give Olivia a good lead.”