Tokyo 2020 Paralympics day one: swimming, cycling, wheelchair rugby and more – live!

Wheelchair basketball: Canada blew away Great Britain late in the fourth quarter. It ends 54-73 in the Group A match. GB will play Australia, Germany, and Japan next. Although four of the five teams in each pool make the quarters, so there’s no great pressure yet.

While we are on the topic of wheelchair basketball, Kieran Pender has written a piece on one of Australia’s men’s players, Jannik Blair, about his backstory and his new customised carbon fibre wheelchair seat.

I’m handing you over to Geoff now, who didn’t get enough of the action earlier and is back for more.

Wheelchair basketball: It’s three-quarter-time and Canada’s lead has blown out to 45-39. They won that quarter 19-10, and the Brits have work to do to make up the difference.

Here is the medal table as it stands, for those who enjoy a bit of AUS/GBR rivalry:

Wheelchair basketball: Team GB’s women are ahead 29-26 leading into the third term of their opening Group A match against Canada. It has been a pretty evenly matched encounter but Kathleen Dandeneau has been the star with a 15-point haul for Canada.

Wheelchair rugby: Well well well, Paralympics newbies Denmark have beaten Australia. It was tied at 53-53 with 15 seconds on the clock and Sebastian Frederiksen used the time efficiently to score and inch ahead 54-53. Ryley Batt wheeled away up the other end of the court with his eyes on the target but concedes a turnover after the ball is ruled out of bounds. What can the Danes do in 2.7 seconds? What can anybody do in 2.7 seconds? In truth they don’t need to do anything but hold onto the ball until the whistle goes. Major upset.

Some more detail on Storey’s insane achievement:

Wheelchair rugby: Denmark’s men have the upper hand over Australia, leading 47-46 with just under four minutes to place.

Here is a report on Australia’s golden start:

Wheelchair rugby: At half-time Australia have pulled ahead 25-23. Captain Ryley Batt, playing at his fifth Paralympics, scored the last two tries to take his haul to 13. That tops the output of Denmark’s Sebastian Frederiksen on 11. The disability class of both players is 3.5.

For the uninitiated, players are given an official classification depending on their level of functional ability, rated from 0.5 to 3.5 with 0.5 being the most severe. Generally, the higher-rated players have more speed and mobility and so fill attacking roles. Four players are on the court for each time and the total points of those four players cannot exceed 8.5.

Wheelchair rugby: The Danes have thrown down the gauntlet to Australia, matching them goal for goal partly thanks to some brutally on-point defence. As the clock ticks down to the end of the second quarter the score stands at 21-21.

Medal ceremonies are under way at the velodrome, which is pretty spesh. Even without a crowd it feels as if there is a vibe watching on TV. I’m sure it’s all real noise.

And amusingly, Channel Seven has just shown the medal table. On day one. After two events. Unsurprisingly, Australia have two gold medals and sit top. Stop the count.

Greco has spoken to Seven and she’s pretty emotional.

“Sorry,” she saays through tears. “I’m just so happy. Can’t believe we did it. It was a good race. Yeah. I still can’t believe it. I can’t thank the team at AusCycling [enough], my coach, their support is amazing. My family and friends, wouldn’t be here without them.”

Emily Petricola is going for Australia’s second gold in as many attempts in her gold medal race against the US’s Shawn Morelli. As it stands at the 1,000m mark is she a second and a half in the lead.

Meg Lemon has just missed out on bronze in the women’s C4 3000m individual pursuit to Canadian Keely Shaw, who comfortably accounted for her Australian counterpart.

Someone was watching:

It’s gold gold gold for Australia! That world record is the seventh (seventh!) on the track today and the second set by Greco. Probably the most remarkable element of Greco’s performance in that race is that her first 250m or so were near-identical to her last race.

Greco, who posted a new world record earlier in qualifying, was quicker at the 1,000m mark than then. In other words, this is QUICK. Wang slightly off the pace.

Paige Greco takes some deep breaths as she and Wang Xiaomei start clean out of the gate.

Schindler has done it, and she’s clearly pumped about it. Brown was dangling the carrot towards the end there and she has bettered her heat time with a 3:55.120 here. Brown finishes in 4:01.523. Gold medal race coming up.

Germany’s Denise Schindler is ahead in the women’s C1 3000m Individual Pursuit bronze medal match-up against American Clara Brown.

I’ve dallied in changing the byline on this blog and thus been moonlighting as one Geoff Lemon for the past half an hour. I am now officially Emma, and my details can be found above for any questions, concerns or gems of wisdom. Track cycling about to get under way so I’m going to hang out at the Izu Velodrome for a bit.

Here’s that story on the possible Covid cluster in the athletes’ village:

If the Kiwi readers out there need some more rugby to take your minds of the, erm, rugby, Australia are due to play Denmark in half an hour. Wheelchair rugby – for me at least – is one of the highlights of the Paralympics. It might be because it was unofficially called “murderball” back in the day, soon after the game was invented in Canada in the ’70s. Not a bad nickname considering the mix of basketball, football and ice hockey and the copious collisions.

Some handy background reading on Australia’s early gold medal hopes who are due to compete in not too long:

Australia has the chance to snare the first two gold medals of the Tokyo Paralympics after Paige Greco and Emily Petricola posted new cycling world records to qualify for their respective finals.

Greco will race for gold at the Izu Velodrome on Wednesday afternoon after smashing her own world record in the women’s C3 individual 3000m pursuit.

Her time of 3 minutes 52.283 seconds topped qualifying, and improved on her previous record of 4:00.206 by almost eight seconds.

More importantly, her red-hot start to the Paralympics has set up a gold medal showdown against China’s Xiaomei Wang, who qualified second with a time of 3:55.781.

Petricola also bettered her own world record when she posted a time of 3:38.061 in the women’s C4 individual 3000m pursuit.

Her time saw her claim pole position in qualifying, and she’ll race off for gold against American Shawn Morelli (3:46.842) later in the day.

Fellow Australian Meg Lemon was fourth fastest in 3:49.043 in the C4 class and will race off for bronze against Canadian Keely Shaw.

The cycling finals will be the first gold medals handed out at the Paralympics, meaning success for Greco and Petricola would propel Australia to the top of the standings.

Australia finished fifth overall at the past two Paralympic Games.

Wheelchair rugby: USA won 63-35 over New Zealand. One day of national weeping has been scheduled in the Shaky Isles.

Cycling: Yet another world record at the track: Netherlands’ Ned Bangma in the men’s B 4000m individual pursuit, in 3:59:47. Another record busted by over four seconds, and he’s the first man under four minutes in this race. He’ll race for gold against GB’s Stephen Bate.

Marcin Polak and Alexandre Lloveras, of Poland and France, race for bronze.

Table tennis: Great Britain’s Ross Wilson also had a win first up, while Australia’s Lisa Daniela di Toro did not. Wilson beat Clement Berthier, who if you hadn’t guessed is French. The picador for di Toro was Sandra Mikolascheck of Germany.

Table tennis: Aaron McKibbin won the Ashes of Table Tennis 3-0, in tribute to the scoreline achieved most recently by Alastair Cook’s men in 2013.

Wheelchair fencing: On Brit-watch, Gemma Collis McCann is out of the women’s sabre after losing her four pool matches.

Cycling: In the men’s individual pursuit 4000m B, for vision-impaired riders, Great Britain’s Neil Fachie is already out of the medal reckoning in fifth spot and James Ball failed to finish. Stephen Bate, the Paralympic record holder, is yet to ride.

Wheelchair basketball: A volley of shots from Netherlands near the end: de Rooij, Beijer, Kramer, Visser, all sinking two-pointers before Visser lands a couple of uncontested free throws after an unsportsmanlike foul is called against the USA. The Americans score on the buzzer but the final margin is suddenly 68-58 to the Dutch. Way to close it out.

Wheelchair basketball: The Dutch are going to win. They’re up by eight.

Wheelchair basketball: A couple of missed threes from the USA and they keep turning the ball over to Netherlands who clear defensively. Kramer scores again for the Dutch and they’re up by six! Three minutes left, Kramer misses her subsequent free throw but clears up her own rebound. No score results, Ryan scores for USA to close it to 60-56.

Wheelchair basketball: Netherlands up 58-54 after sinking a couple of twos.

Wheelchair basketball: The Dutch won’t go away! 54-54 at a timeout in the fourth, six minutes left.

Paul MacInnes on Sarah Storey: “Her tongue was hanging out on that last lap, so she was feeling it, but the pace was serious from start to finish. Looks like gold medal number one of the games for her could well be incoming…”

Add it to the pile. She’s got more gold than Smaug.

Wheelchair rugby: USA leading 29-17 over New Zealand as half time arrives.

Table tennis: Nathan Pellissier and Aaron McKibbin are starting off, Australia v Great Britain, in what many are called the Ashes of Table Tennis.

Cycling: Dame Sarah Story is up next at the velodrome.

Wheelchair basketball: A close one in the women’s game, the USA leading 36-34 against Netherlands.

Wheelchair rugby: USA leading New Zealand 16-10 in the men’s game, second period. It’s been intense.

Ode to a Lemon
Pablo Neruda

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love’s
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree’s yellow
emerges,the lemons
move down
from the tree’s planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaarsfor the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation’s
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

Cycling: I was glad to see an Australian rider named Meg Lemon on the card. She’s qualified to ride for bronze in the C4 individual pursuit against Canada’s Keely Shaw, with Petricola tackling USA’s Shawn Morelli for gold.

But then the commentators kept pronouncing her as Meg Le Mon. I hope that’s just their error. Because, mate. If you want to say it like that, put a space in it.

Lemons stand proud, acerbic, full of zest.