Been a day of close finishes, particularly in the cycling. Gutted for Will in the table tennis, so so close to getting the gold!
I know they say honesty is the best policy but I had a feeling that it would turn the momentum, honesty rarely seems to be the best policy in sport (not that I'm advocating he did anything else!)
On another sport, I loved the men's wheelchair basketball. Would 100 x rather watch it then able-bodied version, much more exciting.
Talking of honesty; i used to play challenge matches in tennis. They were a way of bumping up your rating in your category etc. I once played someone whose brother played for Huddersfield and managed Bradford (i think). He was the biggest cheating git I've ever encountered in the sport. Calling certain balls out when they were well in.. strangely enough he never questioned anything prior, this was when i was closing in on match point. All niceness and light prior to starting too. I was so disappointed.
My cousin was a wheelchair Javelin medallist in the days before they were known as the Paralympics. He had an accident on a building site as a youth and was treated at Stoke Mandeville...no-one seemed to know they existed in those days. Edit David died quite a few years ago, on googling it now he won two medals in Tokyo 1964, silver in club throwing ( not Javelin ) and a bronze in weightlifting.
Delighted for a former colleague of mine, Paul Moseley who is now Hannah Cockroft’s coach. He has been there all along when we ran Disability Sport Yorkshire Talent camps. He was the driving force behind them. Funnily enough Hannah first attended as a thrower, but we had 5 sports chairs available for athletes to try. Hannah tried a racing wheelchair and although it wasn’t a great fit for her, the rest is history. Paul deserves alot of credit as he has put in long hours to get disabled athletes to achieve. Delighted for him - and of course Hannah.
