Best Medal-Haul For Welsh Para-Athletes For 20 Years
The Paralympics is over, but Wales are still celebrating an incredible Games. 22 athletes travelled to Paris as part of Team GB, and 14 returned with medals.
Overall, 16 medals were won – seven golds, five silvers, and four bronzes, across 10 different sports.
Most were won in individual pursuits, with Jodie Grinham, Rhys Darbey, and Georgia Wilson winning multiple medals.
The Welsh haul of 16 medals is the most since Athens in 2004, where Wales took home a staggering 22.
Perhaps more impressive was Beijing 2008, where 10 golds were won as part of a medal haul of 14.
Welsh athletes ranged from athletics to table tennis, and archery to equestrian and in age, too: the youngest medal winner being 17-year-old Rhys Darbey in the pool, with the oldest being 40-year-old table tennis player Rob Davies.
Gold Rush on the First Weekend
It was perhaps the most memorable weekend in Welsh para-sport for a generation. Across a 24-hour period, Welsh athletes won five gold medals, beginning with Matt Bush in the para-taekwondo.
Injury ruled him out of the Rio and Tokyo Games, so it was third time lucky for the 35-year-old former javelin thrower.
The second gold medal came in the rowing, as Ben Pritchard won a dominant victory in the men’s single sculls beating the reigning champion and long-time rival Roman Polianskyi of Ukraine.
In the velodrome, James Ball won his first Paralympic medal. beating his Team GB teammate Neil Fachie in the men’s B 1000m time trial. Ball was helped to the title by his pilot, and fellow Welshman, Steffan Lloyd.
At the Stade de France, Sabrina Fortune swept the competition away with a world record breaking shot put throw of 15.12m, putting the memories of a fifth placed finish in Tokyo behind her.
Swimmer Rhys Darbey completed the five-gold set in the pool. In his first ever Paralympic race, the 17-year-old won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay, in a team made up of fellow teenagers.
Golden Girls
Two further gold medals were won later in the week, as Jodie Grinham added to her individual archery bronze with a team gold, and Laura Sugar rounded off the Games with a gold on the final day.
Grinham, who competed in this Games while seven months pregnant, won the mixed team title with Nathan Macqueen.
Sugar did not just retain her singles kayak title from Tokyo, she also broke the Paralympic record as well.
Silver – Second Winner or First Loser?
For Aled Siôn Davies, the answer to that question is certainly the latter. The three-time Paralympic gold medallist had to settle for silver in the men’s F63 shot put after what he called a ‘massive underperformance’ in the final.
For 40-year-old Rob Davies, though, this Paralympics was a return to form in his later years. Having won gold in the men’s singles in Rio, 2016, he missed Tokyo due to a shoulder injury. Davies roared back to take silver, losing a close final to Cuba’s Yunier Fernandez.
Elsewhere, Georgia Wilson backed up her bronze in the individual championship with a silver in the freestyle, while Darbey did the same: three days after his gold, he came second in the men’s 200m individual medley.
Phil Pratt also took home a silver medal at Paris, as part of an exciting GB wheelchair basketball side that ran the heavy favourites – the US – very close in the final.
Four Bronzes to Add to the Tally
As well as Grinham and Wilson’s bronzes, tennis table player Paul Karbarak and javelin thrower Hollie Arnold also took home bronze medals in Paris.
Karabardak became the first Welsh competitor to win a medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympics after taking bronze alongside doubles teammate Billy Shilton.
With no bronze medal match, Karabardak and and Shilton won bronze alongside the other beaten semi-finalists – a rather bittersweet end.
Arnold, a gold medal winner in Rio and bronze medallist four years later in Tokyo, won yet another para-athletics medal with a throw of 40.59m.
Another Successful Games
Overall, the Paris Paralympic Games will be viewed as a phenomenal success for Welsh para-sport and Team GB.
They ended the 2024 Games with a total of 124 medals: 49 golds, 44 silvers, and 31 bronzes. Second behind the juggernaut of China, and ahead of the US is an amazing achievement for British para-sport.
The final Welsh honour in Paris fell to Matt Bush, who was given the task of being Great Britain’s flag bearer alongside para-swimmer Poppy Maskill.
Read More:
Welsh Paralympic Medallists
GOLD
Matt Bush (Para taekwondo – men’s K44 +80kg)
Ben Pritchard (Para-rowing – PR1 men’s singles sculls)
James Ball and Steffan Lloyd (Para-cycling – Men’s B 1000m time trial)
Sabrina Fortune (Para-athletics – women’s F20 shot put)
Rhys Darbey (Para-swimming – mixed S14 4x100m freestyle relay)
Jodie Grinham (Para-archery – mixed team compound open)
Laura Sugar (Para canoe – women’s kayak singles KL3 200m)
SILVER
Rhys Darbey (Para-swimming – men’s SM14 200m individual medley)
Rob Davies (Para table tennis – men’s singles MS1)
Georgia Wilson (Para equestrian – grade II individual freestyle)
Aled Sion Davies (Para athletics – men’s F63 shot put)
Phil Pratt (wheelchair basketball men’s team)
BRONZE
Paul Karabardak (Para table tennis – men’s doubles MD14)
Jodie Grinham (Para-archery – women’s individual compound)
Georgia Wilson (Para-equestrian – individual event grade II)
Hollie Arnold (Para athletics – women’s F46 javelin)
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