Jordan storms to time trial victory

Lizzi Jordan was just 19 years old when she contracted a rare form of E. coli from suspected food poisoning, spending two months in a coma as her organs slowly shut down.

When she awoke, she’d lost her sight but in Paris, she and pilot Danielle Khan stormed to a spectacular gold in the women’s 1000m time trial.

Up against Jess Gallagher and Caitlin Ward, they fell almost a second behind but slowly reeled them in and, on the last lap, made the decisive move for gold.

The Aussie pair had earlier beaten the time of ParalympicsGB’s Sophie Unwin and Jenny Holl, who took bronze as a result.

“Sport has given me a sense of purpose, a sense of achievement, it’s saved me really. I’ve achieved more without my sight than I did with it,” Jordan said.

“I’ve worked really hard from the bottom to the top. It’s a great story and should be a good example for other people of what happens if you believe in what you can achieve.”

Jordan was a talented equestrian before her life changed, the freedom of flying at 40mph around the velodrome now when she feels most alive.

“As I blind person we live our life more slowly, cycling gives me a sense of freedom that I don’t get from anything else,” she added.

“When I arrived at the velodrome just four years ago, I’d never cycled before and it all seemed so unrealistic.”

Unwin hailed the strength of British tandem cycling after claiming bronze in the women’s B 1000m time trial at Paris 2024.

The 30-year-old finished third alongside pilot Jenny Holl in a time of 1:07.879 in the velodrome, less than one second behind Lizzi Jordan and Khan.

With reigning individual pursuit champion Lora Fachie just over a second behind in fourth, it was undoubtedly a British party in the velodrome and Unwin, who already has two Paralympic medals to her name from Tokyo, credited her competition as the friendly fire behind her success.

“It feels amazing,” she said. “We were in Tokyo three years ago not even looking at the kilo as a medal event so to come here and medal is incredible.”

Blaine Hunt won silver in the C4-5 kilo time trial and Matthew Robertson bronze in the C2 individual pursuit, as ParalympicsGB enjoyed a prosperous day on the track.

Hunt outshone team-mates Jody Cundy and Archie Atkinson to win silver just three years after he joined the British Cycling team and paid tribute to the sacrifices his family has made.

“All my family are over there and my daughter,” Hunt said.

“My wife sleeps with three bikes in the bedroom, at least one in the front room - there’s about five in the shed.

“I miss out on family things. My nan died before I came here. They’re postponing the funeral so I can be there. It’s things like that you miss out on.”

Kent cyclist Robertson was rewarded for his resilience with a Paralympic bronze medal.

Having been heartbroken by narrowly missing out on a place at the Tokyo Games, the 25-year-old was involved in a road traffic accident in 2023.

Robertson is now a medallist and the pride of ParalympicsGB after he collected bronze in the men’s C2 3000m individual pursuit at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome.

“I didn’t feel incredible on the bike because this is so hard but I feel incredible now,” said Robertson.

“This is the culmination of so much hard work and I can’t tell you how special it is to be standing here with a medal.”