Great Britain has won three more gold medals on day three of the Tokyo Paralympics.
Kadeena Cox celebrated her “near-perfect” world-record at the Paralympics as she retained her cycling C4-5 time trial title, while swimmer Reece Dunn broke his own world record to win gold in the S14 200m freestyle and Hannah Russell claimed victory in the S12 100m backstroke.
Bethany Firth also won silver in the women’s S14 200m freestyle, while Great Britain also took bronzes in swimming, cycling, fencing, athletics and powerlifting.
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Cox, who dyed her hair red and blue ahead of her victory in the Izu Velodrome, crossed the line in 34.812, which was reduced to a real time of 34.433 due to her being in the lower of the two classifications.
“I think today I executed a race that was near-perfect,” she said. “This year has been tough and I have tried to not focus on it but I have been injured since my last session at the end of last year.
“At Christmas I got injured and 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, which has been quite hard but I have a great support network who have helped get me through and make this moment even more special.”
It was her second successive Games, having battled disordered eating and a series of injury issues since she set the global bests while claiming gold in Rio in 2016.
After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2014, Cox claimed gold in the time trial and the T37 400m athletics event in Brazil.
Simply sublime today from Kadeena
What an athlete🥇#ImpossibleToIgnore pic.twitter.com/uSJSqoQqA5
Meanwhile in the swimming, Russell retained her S12 100m backstroke title in a time of 1:08.44, while Dunn beat his own world record by clocking 1:52.40 in the S14 200m freestyle.
Dunn, who won S14 100m butterfly silver earlier in the week, told Channel 4: “Amazing – this is the one that I trained for and put all my effort into it and to break the world record too.
“I knew (Brazil’s Gabriel Bandeira) would be strong in that back 50m, so I put on the pressure in the first 150m. I was hurting.
“The first 150m was strong. Not bad with 12 weeks training post Covid.”
Russell said: “In a visually impaired event, the turn is prime. I’ve been focusing on it so much this year in training.
“I knew it was going to be really tough on that back end.
“For me, taking a bit of time out around 2018-2019 was really important for me.
“It was really important for my mental health, I struggled with my mental health a couple of years ago but I overcame it. Always believe in your ability.”