Welsh Para-athletes enjoy best medal haul in 20 years
As the curtain falls on Paris 2024, Welsh Paralympians are celebrating their best medal haul in 20 years.
Wales sent a contingent of 22 Para-athletes to the Games with Great Britain and 14 returned with medals around their necks.
There were 16 medals in total - seven golds, five silvers and four bronzes - across 10 different sports.
That is the most medals since Athens 2004 when Welsh athletes earned 22.
It is also the best Welsh performance at a Paralympic Games since Beijing 2008, when 10 golds were won as part of a 14-medal total.
The youngest winner in Paris was 17-year-old swimmer Rhys Darbey, who won gold and silver, and the oldest was 40-year-old table tennis player Rob Davies, who won silver.
GOLD
Matt Bush (Para taekwondo – men’s K44 +80kg)
Ben Pritchard (Para-rowing – PR1 men’s singles sculls)
James Ball and Steffan Lloyd (Para-cycling – Men’s B 1000m time trial)
Sabrina Fortune (Para-athletics – women’s F20 shot put)
Rhys Darbey (Para-swimming – mixed S14 4x100m freestyle relay)
Jodie Grinham (Para-archery – mixed team compound open)
Laura Sugar (Para canoe – women’s kayak singles KL3 200m)
SILVER
Rhys Darbey (Para-swimming – men’s SM14 200m individual medley)
Rob Davies (Para table tennis – men’s singles MS1)
Georgia Wilson (Para equestrian – grade II individual freestyle)
Aled Sion Davies (Para athletics – men’s F63 shot put)
Phil Pratt (wheelchair basketball men’s team)
BRONZE
Paul Karabardak (Para table tennis – men’s doubles MD14)
Jodie Grinham (Para-archery – women’s individual compound)
Georgia Wilson (Para-equestrian – individual event grade II)
Hollie Arnold (Para athletics – women’s F46 javelin)
The gold rush
The first weekend of the Games will long go down in the memory of Welsh sport, with five athletes topping the podium in less than 24 hours.
Matt Bush began the gold rush and made a little bit of history along the way in becoming the first male to win Para-taekwondo gold for Great Britain.
It proved to be third time lucky for the 35-year-old after injury had ruled him out of competing in Rio and Tokyo.
Ben Pritchard rowed his way to victory the following morning, the Mumbles single sculler convincingly beating the reigning champion and long-time rival Roman Polianskyi of Ukraine.
Pritchard, who finished fifth in Tokyo, won by more than 10 seconds.
Meanwhile on the final day of action in the velodrome, James Ball claimed the biggest win of his cycling career.
He beat team-mate Neil Fachie in the time trial, with Ball having finished second to the Scot in Tokyo three years ago.
Ball was helped to the title by his pilot, and fellow Welshman, Steffan Lloyd.
Over in the athletics, Sabrina Fortune claimed gold in the shot put.
The 27-year-old won bronze in Rio as a teenager, but injury meant she could only manage fifth in Tokyo.
Since then she has claimed two world titles, and twice broke the world record on her way to victory in Paris.
Swimmer Rhys Darbey completed the golden weekend and did it in style.
He won gold on his first ever Paralympic race, the 4x100m freestyle relay, and remarkably did so with three fellow teenagers.
Two further golds would follow later in the Games and few more memorable than Jodie Grinham in the Para-archery. She won the mixed team title with Nathan Macqueen, but her Champagne will have to sit on ice as she competed while seven months pregnant.
Laura Sugar had to be patient for her shot at gold, but did it in style on the final day.
The 33-year-old not only retained her singles kayak title from Tokyo, but set a new Paralympic record just for good measure.
The pain of defeat
While there was elation for some, there was disappointment for other athletes, such is the nature of sport.
Aled Sion Davies had gone to Paris at the hot favourite having set a new shot put world record in May this year, but the 33-year-old had to settle for silver after what he called a “massive underperformance” in the final.
Fellow track athlete Olivia Breen also left the games disappointed.
After winning 100m Commonwealth gold, Breen missed out on the final after finishing ninth overall.
Medal hopes then transferred to the long jump, but the 28-year-old was pipped to the bronze medal by the tightest of margins.
Breen had jumped the same distance as the third-placed competitor, but her second best jump had not been as long.
Three-time Paralympics boccia champion David Smith also had hopes of adding to his haul, but he was beaten in the individual bronze medal match and also failed to win a medal in the team event.
The 35-year-old said afterwards that he had "just ran out of gas".
The Games must, however, be viewed as a roaring success for Welsh athletes and ParalympicsGB as a whole.
They ended their 2024 Paralympics with a total of 124 medals, including 49 golds.
Only China, with 94 golds and 219 total medals, won more during the 11-day event.
The final Welsh honour in Paris falls to Matt Bush, who was given the task of being Great Britain's flag bearer alongside para-swimmer Poppy Maskill.
The ceremony at Stade de France starts at at 19:30 BST.
