Australia’s 37-year-long Paralympic table tennis drought is finally over. The seemingly uninterruptable hiatus came to an end on Monday as Yang Qian and Lei Lina both won their respective women’s singles finals.
The star duo’s performances has now brought Australia’s gold medal tally for Tokyo to a glorious 10.
According to Qian, she had a strong case of the nerves at the start, but after she witnessed Lina winning gold, she too, felt her own confidence rise. This year was Qian’s first time to represent Australia at a Paralympic event.
Lina is a five-time Paralympic gold medallist while competing for her home country China, and now also a gold medallist while competing for Aus.
There was much to celebrate on Monday after the men’s T34 100m wheelchair also, as 36-year-old Tunisian Ktila aced his third Paralympic gold medal in the popular event. Ktila finished the event in a time of 15.01 seconds.
Australians shone in the men’s wheelchair basketball event on Monday evening – and qualified for the quarterfinals despite a disappointing 70-69 loss to Great Britain. Australia’s Rollers were in fact on the road to a sure victory after shooting open an impressive 2o-point lead half-way through Q2 of Monday night’s game. They were still in the lead by halftime, and by a not-too-shabby 13 points. Great Britain however came at them fast and hard before levelling the points tally in the third quarter before taking the game from the Aussies by a single point.
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