MAISIE SUMMERS-NEWTON, Brock Whiston and Grace Harvey grabbed Paralympic titles as Team GB’s swimmers capped a stellar day for the team in Paris.
ParalympicsGB celebrated 12 golds (two more after the Star went to press on Sunday night) across all sports on a super Sunday — the most in a single day this century.
Glory for Summers-Newton, Whiston and Harvey was followed by success for the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay team of William Ellard, Rhys Darbey, Poppy Maskill and Olivia Newman-Baronius.
The four pool triumphs at La Defense Arena added to three golds in both rowing and cycling, plus two in athletics.
GB’s previous record for golds won on a single day in recent history was nine, reached at both Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016.
Four silvers and two bronzes were also collected on day four of the Games to propel the team’s overall medal haul to 43, including 23 golds.
Summers-Newton, who retained the SM6 200 metres individual medley title on Friday, became a double champion for the second consecutive Games by successfully defending the SB6 100 breaststroke crown.
The 22-year-old touched the wall in a Paralympic-record time of one minute 31.30 seconds.
“My self-belief is quite low sometimes but I’m so happy to get another gold medal and so chuffed, so pleased,” she said. “It’s what dreams are made of.
“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.”
Whiston then battled back to win the SM8 200m individual medley in two minutes 40.37 seconds, having trailed compatriot Alice Tai by more than 10 seconds at the halfway point.
Tai secured bronze behind Russian Viktoriia Ishchiulova to add to the 100m backstroke gold she claimed on Saturday.
Harvey continued the gold rush by upgrading the SB5 100m breaststroke silver she won in Japan in a time of one minute 42.33secs, before the S14 relay team closed the evening with a bang, blowing away their rivals in three minutes 43.05s.
However, there was disappointment for Britain’s wheelchair rugby side as their title defence was ended by the United States.
In a rematch of the Tokyo final, the US gained revenge with a 50-43 victory, setting up a showdown with Japan and leaving GB in Monday’s bronze medal match against Australia.
Captain Gavin Walker said: “Emotions are a little bit low at the moment, but we need to get ourselves back in game mode and best prepared for tomorrow.
“All our focus, all our efforts are going into that bronze medal game now. There’s nothing to preserve ourselves for. It’s all or nothing really.”
Elsewhere, boccia star David Smith fell short in his pursuit of a hat-trick of individual Paralympic titles.
The BC1 champion from Rio and Tokyo — Britain’s most successful player of the boules-like sport — was beaten 4-3 by South Korea’s Jung Sung Joon in the semi-finals of the BC1 event.
Smith was subsequently denied a podium place by a 5-3 loss to Indonesia’s Muhamad Syafa in the bronze medal match.
Claire Taggart suffered a 5-2 defeat to another Indonesian player, Gischa Zayana, at the same stage of the women’s BC2 individual event.
“I’m more disappointed about the semi-final, that game was the toss of a coin,” said Smith.
“On another day, I would have won that game comfortably 7-0, but the boccia gods were playing with me.”
