EGN NEWS DESK
The first medal of the Games went to Netherlands para bicycle owner Caroline Groot, who set each a world document and a Paralympic document within the 500m time trial C4-5. Italy’s Francesco Bocciardo additionally set a Paralympic document, because the 30-year-old para swimmer introduced residence a medal within the males’s 200m freestyle S5 in his fourth Games. And host nation France obtained its first gold of the Games courtesy of para swimmer Ugo Didier within the males’s 400m freestyle S9.
The first U.S. medal of the Paralympics was a silver earned by para swimmer Elizabeth Marks within the girls’s 50m freestyle S6; she additionally collected silver medals within the girls’s 50m butterfly S6 and 200m particular person medley SM6.
At the Games, there will likely be medals awarded in 549 occasions throughout 22 sports activities in 20 venues — together with the aquatics middle at La Defense, which simply noticed medal-winning performances from Olympians reminiscent of U.S. star Katie Ledecky and France’s Leon Marchand, and the athletics services on the Stade de France, the place U.S. lengthy jumper Tara Woodhall-Davis introduced residence a gold.
She was cheered on by her husband, Hunter Woodhall, a sprinter who will chase his personal gold on the Paralympics beginning Sept. 1. She leaped into his arms after her remaining bounce in one of many Games’ most viral moments.
