Sandilands surges to 1500m gold

Ben Sandilands powered to men’s 1500m T20 gold in world record time on Paralympic debut.

Sandilands, who was crowned world champion on debut in the French capital last year, surged clear of the field with a lap to go.

The 21-year-old crossed the line for victory in a brilliant 3:45.40, slicing a tenth of a second off the previous and taking 1.6 seconds off his personal best.

The rest were in the rear view as Sandilands won by a margin of more than four seconds with Portugal’s Sandro Baessa taking silver and USA’s Michael Brannigan bronze.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Sandilands.

“I’ve put in so much hard work and I want to thank my family and friends, and my coach Steve Doig. I knew I had the speed in me at the end from my training.

“The timing has to be perfect and I went for it, and the world record means a lot. It’s incredible.”

Meanwhile, Marcus Perrineau-Daley had a blistering start to thank for his silver medal in the men’s 100m T52.

The Paralympic debutant blasted off the line and despite seeing Belgian world champion Maxime Carabin pass him in the middle phase of the race, took silver in 17.27s (+1.6).

It was a big step forward for Perrineau-Daley who finished seventh and tenth at the last two World Championships.

“It’s mixed emotions because I was in the lead for quite a bit and then I must have hit my wheel wrong,” he said.

“When I put my power down, they won’t be able to catch me and I’ve proven that. I made three mistakes in the 100m and I still got a silver.”

Britain set a European record en route to the final of the universal relay.

Zac Shaw, Jonnie Peacock, Ali Smith, and Sammi Kinghorn combined to register 46.61s and reach tonight’s final.

Kinghorn said: “It’s so exciting. I’m glad I’ve done my individuals now and I can enjoy being part of a team. “We had fun out there, went pretty fast and got a European record so pretty good.”

Shaw: said “My focus has purely been on the relay. At the end, I didn’t know where we came and Sammi’s wheeling around saying ‘we got a European record’. It’s just a heat so focus on the final and go from there.”

Peacock said: “I think that we’ve done what we needed to do. We obliterated the European record, I don’t think you can ask for much more.”

Elsewhere, Isaac Towers navigated a rapid heat to reach the final of the men’s 800m T34.

Towers placed fifth in a time of 1:42.62 to advance as one of two fastest qualifiers from a heat in which the Paralympic record fell to China’s Wang Yang.

In the women’s 1500m T20 final, Tokyo bronze medallist Hannah Taunton finished fifth.

Taunton produced her season’s best in the Paralympic final, running 4:38.98, to come up 9.5 seconds short of a podium place.

Jonathan Broom-Edwards missed out on the medal positions in the men’s high jump T64.

After banking clearances at 1.80m and 1.89m, Broom-Edwards passed at 1.93m and two failures at 1.97m left him on the back foot, exiting the competition after bringing down the bar at 2m.