Kadeena Cox hopes to inspire a generation of black British cyclists, after successfully defending the first of her two Paralympic titles to remain on track for a historic double-double in two sports.
The 30-year-old was the first black cyclist to win an Olympic or Paralympic medal for Great Britain in Rio, where she also became the first British Paralympian in 32 years to win gold medals across two sports – cycling and athletics – at an individual Games.
At the Izu Velodrome on Friday her aim to repeat that feat in Tokyo got off to a flying start by not only retaining her gold in the C4-5 500m time trial, but smashing the world record by four tenths of a second. It is a performance she wants to live firmly in the memories of those watching back home.
“I set up the KC Academy to get more people from a black background into cycling,” Cox, whose parents are Jamaican, said. “Because if you don’t see someone you don’t think you can be it. I fell into cycling by accident and now I want to be what other people can see, so they can go on and do better than me.
“I totally expect there to be some young girl or boy sat at home thinking ‘I want to be like Kadeena Cox’, and then going on to better everything I’ve done. That’s my dream, to empower people, because there should be no reason that the colour of your skin should stop you from doing everything you want to do.”
She is making sure her achievements will be difficult to equal though, the style in which she cruised to a world record made all the more impressive considering what she has contended with since her golden Rio 2016. Cox has spoken openly about her “disordered eating” and mental health struggles over the past couple of years, and has also been managing injuries that almost ended her Tokyo chances, with calf and hamstring tears and an Achilles problem troubling her over the past eight months.
“This year has been tough. I have tried to not focus on it but I have had injury after injury, which has been hard because it impacts both sports. And it is hard mentally, it has made my eating disorder creep back up, but I have a great support network who have helped get me through and make this moment even more special.”
Friday was also the hottest day of Tokyo 2020 so far, no small detail when Cox has multiple sclerosis, where her body is unable to regulate her temperature: “I have MS and am heat intolerant so it is tricky. It is affecting my spasms and affects my speech – which is annoying because I like talking. It is a struggle and it will take me a little bit longer to recover.”
As she stepped up to receive her medal on the podium, the impact of the sweltering conditions was evident as she required the assistance of a walking stick to help steady her. On the track though, she was cool and composed despite the immense pressure on her shoulders as reigning champion.
Cox was last to race, with Canada’s Kate O’Brien breaking the world record immediately before she was due to take to the track. But Cox sat calmly as she waited with her team, patriotic blue and red plaits in her hair and sparkly blue eyeliner on her eyes, which were focused firmly on her phone screen in hand.
“I was not paying attention to what anyone was doing, I was just listening to my gospel music and reading messages from my family,” Cox said, before dedicating the gold medal to her grandfather. “My grandad, he’s been in and out of hospital while I was here, and he sent me a message saying ‘go get the gold’ – so this one’s for him. He’s one of my biggest supporters, he was a boxer, so he’s kind of living his dreams though me now.”
Ahead of going for a repeat of that all-important gold in the T38 400m in the athletics next week, Cox will return on the final day of the track cycling on Saturday for the mixed team sprint with Jody Cundy and Jaco Van Gass.
That event will be Van Gass’s third event in as many days, as earlier on Friday the Afghanistan war veteran won his second medal of the Tokyo Games in the highly competitive C1-3 1,000m time trial.
Though he could not quite match his gold debut on Thursday night, Van Gass took bronze and a world record time of 1minute 5.569seconds in his C3 classification. “That’s as much as I can give, I promise you that,” he said afterwards. “The legs felt a little bit heavy, especially that last lap – like treacle. But I gave it my all. The game plan was always the world record, if it came with a medal then it was a bonus. So I’m very happy.”
It was the second world record time the 35-year-old has set at these Paralympics, despite the UCI denying him the chance to wear an innovative prosthetic arm at the last minute – one which he was originally given the green light to compete in. Though disappointing, Van Gass said the difference in speed would have been marginal: “It makes a difference, but it doesn’t make the world of a difference – I think hundredths [of a second]. Thursday’s performance showed I don’t need a fast arm, I just need fast legs.”
Golden duo Hannah Russell and Reece Dunn spearhead British charge in pool
By Oliver Brown in Tokyo
Under blazing lights inside Tokyo’s Aquatics Centre, Hannah Russell felt finally as if she had emerged from the darkness. Just two years ago, this effervescent 25-year-old swimmer, whose visual impairment means she can barely see 18 inches in front of her, found herself stricken by major anxiety and depression. That she weathered such a traumatic Paralympic cycle to defend her title here in the S12 100m breaststroke stood as testament not just to the skills of her therapist but to her own irrepressible spirit.
Since reaching her lowest ebb, Russell has earned a first-class degree in sports science, a professional qualification in sports massage, and now, confounding even her own expectations, a fourth Paralympic gold in the sport she had once abandoned. Having held off resistance by Russian rival Daria Pikalova, she sensed her adrenalin surge again as she saw her name atop the giant screen, remembering instantly that the pool was where she was happiest.
“I’ve had a difficult few years, and I have overcome them,” said Russell, still breathless at her victory. “It’s surreal, I’m overwhelmed. Swimming has been a massive part of my life. I have struggled with my mental health, but I wanted to prove to people, ‘Never give up, believe in your abilities.’ This has been the toughest year of training I’ve done. Throughout, I was thinking to myself, ‘Keep fighting.’ I couldn’t feel my legs in the last 15m, but I just tried to keep going.’
The difficulties assailing her during her swims are acute. Due to Russell’s lack of central vision, she has trouble ascertaining where any of her fellow swimmers are, to the point where two lengths of the Paralympic pool become a straight battle between her and the clock. A further issue is the turn: if you have a diminished perception of the other competitors’ movements, how do you judge the location of the wall?
The daughter of London Scottish chief executive Carson Russell, she is nothing if not resourceful. “In a visually impaired event, the turn is of prime importance,” she explained. “I’ve been focusing on it so much, as I knew how tough it would be. I might have control of my front end, but the back end is where I fall. So, I watched all the Olympic swimmers perform their incredible moves underwater, and I tried to replicate them as much as I could.”
In the space of 40 frantic minutes, the British team snaffled five swimming medals, with Reece Dunn’s gold in the S14 200m freestyle signalling another triumph over psychological torment. A bout of Covid last December had, he disclosed, led to a depressive episode. At 25, he was diagnosed with autism as a teenager, only making his para-swimming debut in 2019, but left no doubt as to his dominance here as he broke his own world record by over half a second.
Given his recent struggles, it was understandable that he should channel Adam Peaty’s famously sweary postmortems when he was asked to describe the moment. “F—— amazing,” Dunn said. “I had Covid earlier this year and then went through a depressive stage where I had to see a psychologist. It makes it even more sweet.”
Tempering his dismay at silver in the butterfly, where he had been favourite to win, he never looked likely to relinquish his lead over Gabriel Bandeira, even if the Brazilian put him under some late pressure. “I knew I needed to make him burn some energy over the first 150,” said Dunn, who calls swimming his means of escaping the outside world. “I was hurting. It’s not a bad result after only 12 weeks’ training.” In his view, this was also justification for leaving his role at his father’s carpet-cleaning company back home in Devon. “I quit the day job and now I concentrate on swimming full-time,” he smiled. “It’s a good life.”
There was family significance of a different kind for Stephen Clegg, the third member of his family to appear on a Paralympic podium after his bronze in the S12 100m breaststroke. He joins sister Libby, the registered blind sprinter who took double gold in Rio, and brother James, a swimmer who finished third in freestyle at London 2012.
While Bethany Firth’s silver in the S14 200m freestyle was a downgrade on her gold in 2016, Jessica-Jane Applegate, grasping the bronze over five seconds behind her, had cause for the greatest contentment. Her preparations for these Games were complicated by two serious car accidents, both driving to her training base in Norfolk, with the impacts creating ongoing whiplash injuries. “It has been an insane year for me,” she said. “I came out to prove a point.” It was a mentality that united Britain’s gang of five in the pool: their resolve, no matter how chaotic their Tokyo build-ups, to make a statement.
David Weir fails to reach 5000m final but Maria Lyle excels with 100m bronze
By Gareth A Davies in Tokyo
Wheelchair racing legend David Weir failed to deliver on his own exacting standards, finishing eighth in his 5000m semi-final in Tokyo. The six-time Paralympic gold medallist was outclassed by winner and long-time rival Marcel Hug, of Switzerland, who set a new Paralympic record of nine minutes 53.26 seconds. Weir had needed to finish in the top three to claim a place in the final.
The ‘Weirwolf’ was unable to match the Swiss racer and the USA’s Daniel Romanchuk, slowing up to finish almost a minute behind the leading pair.
“Whatever happens at these Paralympics, I’m proud of myself to get to my sixth Games,” Weir posted this week on his social media platforms. “In all the years of racing I’ve never been proud of my achievements until now.” Time will tell whether Tokyo is a Games too far for Weir, now 42, as he competes in the coming days on the track, and then the marathon.
There was success, nonetheless, for GB as Maria Lyle became the first para-athlete from the team to claim a gong at these Games with bronze in the women’s 100m T35. The 21-year-old posted a season’s best 14.18 seconds to finish behind gold medallist, Zhou Xia of China, who set a new world record of 13 seconds.
Lyle revealed she had overcome mental health battles at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and was now a renewed force. She explained: “I really struggled in Rio with my mental health. I put quite a lot of pressure on myself because, deep down, I was really self-conscious about my disability.”
“I would hide behind that and just focus on my sport. It became a really unhealthy balance. Being unhappy with my personal circumstances had an effect on my running. It took a few years to realise this wasn’t healthy and to sort it out. I’m in a much better place now. I’m happy in all aspects of my life. I spoke to a psychologist and did things to push myself outside my comfort zone – meeting people my age, working in a job, and realising there is more to life than just sport.”
Defending table tennis champion Will Bayley waltzes way to guaranteed medal match
By Gareth A Davies in Tokyo
How can we not love Will Bayley? One of the great characters of Paralympic sport. Period. From being a tearful teenager in Beijing with ambitions to be the best in the business to receiving a yellow card for celebrating his Rio 2016 gold medal triumph (in front of a watching Johnny Vegas), the career of table tennis star Will Bayley has always been one of triumph over adversity, one of breaking the mould as a human being.
The defending champion resoundingly thumped opponent Bjorn Schnake, of Germany, 3-0 in the quarter-finals of the men’s S7 category at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Friday. Victory, via a 13-11, 11-8, 11-9 scoreline, took just over 25 minutes, and as ever was made compelling by Bayley’s outbursts, noise at every point won, and histrionics. Apart from the mental mastery of his rival, his lightness of touch and dexterity moved him into a guaranteed medal match in Saturday’s semi-final. But perfectionist Bayley is hellbent on retaining the title he won five years ago.
The Strictly Come Dancing star – the third Paralympian to appear on the hit dance show after Jonnie Peacock and Lauren Steadman – overcame a virulent cancer which almost claimed his life at the age of seven. Prior to that he beat arthrogryphosis, a debilitating congenital muscle wasting condition which he has had from birth and which has affected all of his limbs and has required dozens of operations. His lower limbs are, as his mother Chrissie, his No 1 fan, explained, “literally cemented together” which allows the table tennis player no flexibility in his joints. He took up table tennis when his grandmother bought him a table in the process of his recovery from cancer.