Overview

Thanks a million for doing my job for me during the Paras Now, this time, for real, I need a snooze.

Athletics is always the easiest & cheapest sport for new nations to start a para program, so it will always be the most competitive. But certainly UKA seems a bit complacent when it comes to recruiting new talent compared to swimming or cycling for sure.

Lots of good stats here. Paris 2024 Paralympics: Best stats as GB win medals in 18 out of 19 sports - BBC Sport

Badminton My prediction - 1 Gold, 3 medals Result - 0 Gold, 2 medals The results were marginally better than Tokyo although some events felt like a missed opportunity. Dan Bethell was particularly unfortunate to miss out on gold, whist Coombs was beaten more comprehensively. In LA, the programme may well be extended even more and so it is important that the team expands with it. There are 6 members of the Para Badminton performance squad but the team sent 21 athletes to the European championships last year, so the set up is quite deep. Obviously it is too early to predict who will retire and who will break through but the overall squad feels like it is in a fairly good place.

Athletics My prediction - 10 golds, 30 medals Result - 6 golds, 18 medals There is no hiding that this result was pretty disappointing, and another reason UK athletics is not working as intended. Much like with the olympic squad, the team was considerably smaller than previous games, although the total medal haul was far lower then exceptions than for the Olympics. The team was terrible but the overall results were definitely 'carried' by the performances of some athletes. 1 mens wheelchair medal is very poor, especially given the pedigree of all the athletes competing. The team was heading through a transitional phase heading into Tokyo, and it feels like the squad has regressed since then. Looking towards LA, Cockroft seems pretty confident of competing again, Sandilands will be 25, Kinghorn 32 (in an event with lots of longevity), and Fortune will be 31, so will hopefully be contenders again. Many of the throwing squad will be in their mid to late 30's but again the sport can see older athletes compete. 16 year old Maddie Down will likely be competing and could challenge in LA, but apart from that there aren't really any stand out young athletes. The future will alway be unknown and I'm sure new athletes will come through, but the trends shown aren't that promising.

Archery My prediction - 0 golds, 2 medals Result - 1 Gold, 2 medals The team this year was much smaller then previous years, which is a slightly concerning trend for the development of the sport. However, the team still performed strongly, exceeding expectations and bringing home a gold. There are currently 8 members of the world class para squad, 4 of whom went to Paris. The team is comprised of a large range of ages, although the age impairments of archery aren't as large as in other sports. A new performance archery centre opened in Lilleshall at the start of this year, which looks to have world class facilities and hopefully will improve both Olympic and Paralympic results across the next cycle. In addition to this a new para academy was established last year, which will also be a boost to the teams chances.

So that's us done! 49 Gold 44 Silver 31 Bronze Second place in the traditional table. 124 Total medals Second place in the emergency, backup, in case of necessity medal table. Well done every single athlete, coach & helper, you have done us all proud.

With the games drawing to a close today, I thought I would look back over the last couple of weeks of sporting action, compare the results to my predictions and discuss what the future looks like in LA.

Is this our final medal of 2024? Jack Eyres gets a surprise silver in the VL3. Seems not, we have a powerlifter....

Another Gold for Laura Sugar in the KL3.

And a repeat for Henshaw with Wiggs in.silver this time in the KL2

Oh Lordy Alice Tai completely blew up with 15m to go, so just a bronze.

And that's Gold & Silver for Henshaw & Gordon in the VL3. 2 Golds & 2 Silvers from the morning's canoeing, that will do!

Emma Wiggs gets het third Gold in the VL2

Big argument between the two French riders, each blaming the other. Et maintenant...canoe finals.

Finlay Graham in the lead breakaway group of the C1-C3 cycle race, up against two.Frenchmen. And he does it! Gold!

Superstar! Thank you

Day 10 - 7th September 2024 Apologies for a lack of schedules the past couple of days, I have been really busy with work. 08:30 - Road Cycling - Men's C1-3 Road Race - Fin Graham, Ben Watson, Jaco van Gass, Matthew Robertson 08:35 - Road Cycling - Women's C1-3 Road Race - Frances Brown, Dafne Schrager 08:40 - Swimming - Women's 200m IM SM10 - Heats - Faye Rogers (Q3) 09:00 - Athletics - Men's Long Jump T13 - Final - Zak Skinner 09:11 - Athletics - Men's 800m T34 - Final - Isaac Towers 09:12 - Judo - Men's +90kg J2 - Quarterfinals - Skelley vs Zorgani 09:12 - Judo - Men's -90kg J2 - Quarterfinals - Casanova vs Molloy 09:15 - Canoe - Men's KL2 200m - Semifinal - Dave Phillipson 09:16 - Athletics - Women's 100m Butterfly S8 - Heats - Alice Tai, Brock Whiston 09:28 - Canoe - Women's VL2 200m - Semifinal - Jeannette Chippington 09:31 - Swimming - Women's 50m Butterfly S7 - Heats - Iona Winnifrith 09:42 - Canoe - Men's KL3 200m - Semifinal - Rob Oliver 09:47 - Swimming - Men's 100m Butterfly S12 - Heats - Stephen Clegg 09:48 - Judo - Men's -90kg J1 - Quarterfinal - Powell vs TBD 09:57 - Equestrian - Individual Freestye G5 - Sophie Wells 10:28 - Athletics - Women's 100m T63 - Round 1 - Didi Okoh 10:36 - Canoe - Men's KL2 200m - Final - Dave Phillipson (P) 10:36 - Canoe - Women's VL2 - Final - Jeannette Chippington (P), Emma Wiggs 11:10 - Canoe - Men's KL3 200m - Final - Rob Oliver (P) 11:36 - Canoe - Women's VL3 - Final - Charlotte Henshaw, Hope Gordon 11:39 - Equestrian - Individual Freestyle G1 - Mari Durward-Akhurst 11:40 - Fencing - Men's Team Epee - Quarterfinal - vs 12:30 - Tennis - Men's Singles - Final - Hewett vs Oda 13:06 - Equestrian - Individual Freestyle G2 - Georgia Wilson 14:33 - Equestrian - Individual Freestyle G3 - Georgia Baker 16:00 - Powerlifting - Women's -97kg - Louise Sugden 19:20 - Athletics - Men's Shot Put T63 - Final - Aled Davies 16:38 - Swimming - Women's 200m IM SM10 - Final - Faye Rogers 17:07 - Swimming - Women's 100m Butterfly S8 - Final - Alice Tai, Brock Whiston (P) 17:36 - Swimming - Women's 50m Butterfly S7 - Final - Iona Winnifrith (P) 18:27 - Swimming - Men's 100m Butterfly S12 - Final - Stephen Clegg (P) 19:25 - Athletics - Women's 800m T34 - Final - Hannah Cockroft, Kare Adenegan, Fabienne Andre 20:30 - Basketball - Men's Tournament - Final - vs 20:37 - Athletics - Women's 100m T63 - Round 1 - Didi Okoh (P)

We got a 4x100m relay that could bring up medal 100..... Good news.is that there is no baton, just a tap.... Silver medal behind have a bleeding guess... OK pretty sure we are on 100 medals now because we are in an active fencing final.

Gold for Poppy Maskill, bronze for Olivia Newman Baronius takes us to.95 medals, possibly!

First-time Gold for Hewitt & Reid takes us to 40G & 92 overall!

Sophie Unwin & Jenny Holl take Gold in the tandem, Laura Fachie gets bronze, so that's perfect!

Gold and bronze! These road races have been fantastic. Those two golds and the canoeing looking good should keep us ahead of USA on both golds and total now!

Amazing win for Sarah, French girl very far from being gruntled.

Apologies for pirating this title, but I think we need a thread to finish everything up. Lots going on! 100 medal overall target. Think this is well within our grasp now. Second overall on GSB scoring. Also achievable. Although there may be a late surge, our ace up the sleeve will be the Para Canoeing Finals on Sunday. For some reason we are useless at normal sprint canoeing, but regularly dominate at para. Second overall on scoring - ie total number of medals won. This is going to be a bit tighter, but again I think there is still a bit more juice in the lemon.