Distraught Kadeena Cox crashes out of first gold medal final of Paralympics

Kadeena Cox was inconsolable after a disastrous start to her Paralympic campaign, with the multi-Games medallist losing balance and collapsing sideways on the first corner of the women’s C4-5 500m time trial final.

This is the title the 33-year-old was defending from both the Tokyo and Rio Games and the very first medal event of the entire Games. But after her fall, the judges would not allow her a restart in the event, with no mechanical issue noted. The British cyclist, who has MS, was in pieces. So much so that cycling staff escorted her from arena, away from any media interviews.

The drama had silenced the velodrome, which was full for the finals session. Cox had veered off the track two seconds into the time trial, before losing her balance and falling off her bike. After receiving medical attention and being unstrapped, the British star was back to her feet. But once inside the central concourse position, Cox sat on her haunches for 20 minutes, with two GB Paracycling staff in conversation with her in a huddle. Eventually, Cox took to her wheelchair and was pushed out, her hands over her face.

The velodrome, made up predominantly of French spectators, gave the GB athlete a standing ovation in the immediate aftermath of her failed start. But it was no consolation for the stand-out of the British team who looked like a guaranteed medal winner, and who was also took gold in athletics in previous Games.

Cox had suffered a torn calf muscle, Achilles trouble and a relapse of her multiple sclerosis coming into the Games, admitting that “getting to the Games” was more of an issue than competing. The silver lining for Cox is that there is still a chance of her winning a team gold later in the competition – this Sunday.

Caroline Groot of the Netherlands won gold in this women’s C4-5 time trial event by a huge margin with a time of 35.566, yet slower than Cox’s world and Paralympic record of 34.812 seconds. There was silver for Marie Patouillet of France and Canada’s Kate O’Brien took bronze.

Meanwhile, Daphne Schrager won ParalympicsGB’s first medal of the Games taking silver in the women’s C1-3 3000m individual pursuit final. She finished almost 10 seconds behind China’s Wang Xiaomei.

Steve Bate and pilot Chris Latham also took silver from the final of the Men’s B 4000m individual pursuit. The Netherlands’ Tristan Bangma and pilot Patrick Bos won gold after clocking a time of 3:55.439 – almost two seconds ahead of the British bike.

“We had a great day,” Bate told Channel 4 afterwards. “Our target coming here was to try and put the Dutch under pressure. They’ve been the best for the past three years. We’ve beaten them once, because they crashed. They’ve won every competition bar that one. They have just proven today how good they are. We’ve ridden a massive PB, faster than we thought we were going to go in both rides.”

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