Paris 2024 Paralympics: Charlotte Henshaw & Laura Sugar help Great Britain end with 49 golds (2024)

Published

8 September 2024

Charlotte Henshaw and Laura Sugar won Para-canoeing gold medals on Sunday as Great Britain ended their 2024 Paralympics in Paris with 49 golds.

Henshaw, 37, won her second gold medal in as many days during the KL2 women’s 200m kayak singles, with Emma Wiggs taking the silver medal.

Meanwhile, Sugar, 33, won the same event in the KL3 category. Both she and Henshaw set new Paralympic records as they successfully defended their respective titles from Tokyo.

Great Britain’s final medal of the day came in the men’s VL3 Va’a 200m singles final, with Jack Eyers winning silver.

ParalympicsGB ended their 2024 Paralympics with a total of 124 medals, including those 49 golds. Only China, with 94 golds and 219 total medals, won more during the 11-day event.

Great Britain’s ParalympicsGB squad can feel incredibly proud of their achievements in Paris.

They will return to home soil as one of only three nations to win more than 100 medals and, with 49 golds, have their second best haul of golds since the 1996 Games. Only 2016’s total of 64 golds in Rio de Janeiro eclipses this summer’s success in Paris.

ParalympicsGB won at least one gold medal on all 11 days, including 12 on ‘Super Sunday’ a week ago.

Of those 124 medals for Great Britain, 54 came from a combination of Para-swimming and Para-cycling events, with 18 more added in Para-athletics.

The second-place finish - behind China and ahead of the USA for a seventh straight Paralympics - represents another Games to remember.

And as well as the haul of medals, the 11-day event has created countless memories for ParalympicsGB.

It has been a successful weekend at Vaires-sur-Marne Stadium for Great Britain, who won seven medals across Para-canoeing events on Saturday and Sunday.

Four of those came on Sunday and, for Henshaw, it was a second in the space of 24 hours, having won gold in Saturday’s women’s 200m Va’a singles final.

In the same event, Wiggs picked up her second medal of the weekend. The 44-year-old finished two and a half seconds behind Henshaw in a ParalympicsGB gold-silver double.

After winning his heat with a new Paralympic record, debutant Eyers, who in 2017 became the first amputee to be named Mr England, won the final of GB’s 124 medals of the Paralympics on Sunday.

Jeanette Chippington featured in the first final of the day, finishing seventh in the women’s KL1 kayak singles 200m final.

Edward Clifton was also in final action. He finished seventh in the men’s VL2 Va’a 200m singles final.

Ahead of Sunday night’s Paralympics closing ceremony, Para-swimmer Poppy Maskill and Para-taekwondo’s Matt Bush have been named as Great Britain’s flag bearers.

Maskill, 19, has been one of the stars of the Games. From her five events, she has won three gold and two silver medals, making her GB’s most successful Paralympic athlete.

Bush, 35, won gold in the men’s +80kg K44 final, his first Paralympic medal, having missed both 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo three years ago due to injury.

The duo both made their Paralympic debut in this year’s Paris Games.

The closing ceremony is at Stade de France, starting at 19:30 BST. It will feature 24 artists from the French electronic music scene.

David Weir called time on his career representing ParalympicsGB following the conclusion of the T54 men’s marathon on Sunday morning.

Weir, 45, finished fifth in the marathon, which was won by Switzerland’s Marcel Hug.

After Weir’s seventh Paralympics came to a close, he retired from GB competition that has included 10 Paralympic medals - six of them gold - after making his Paralympic debut at Atlanta in 1996.

Weir, who is also a six-time world champion, cited the T54 marathon being removed from the World Championship schedule among his reasons for retiring from international competition.

“I knew before I came to Paris and I’ve been thinking about it all week... It’s the right decision,” said Weir.

“We don’t have marathons at Worlds any more. That’s the event I want to do. I don’t want to race on track any more.”

In the women’s T54 marathon, GB’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper did not finish, having completed more than half of the 42.2km course. Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner won the race to take her sixth medal and fifth gold of the Games.

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