Kinghorn’s ‘mind blown’ by first Paralympic gold

Sammi Kinghorn said it was “absolutely blowing my mind” to have won a first Paralympic gold medal, after taking victory in the T53 100m in Paris.

The 28-year-old Briton came home in a Paralympic record 15.64 seconds at Stade de France, edging out Catherine Debrunner.

It comes after Kinghorn took two silvers over 800m and 1500m earlier in the Games, losing out to the Swiss on both occasions.

She now has five Paralympic medals overall, having won a bronze and silver in Tokyo three years ago.

Debrunner, who has also won gold over 5000m in Paris, got the silver in 15.77 with Gao Fang, the champion in Tokyo, taking bronze in 16.61.

“I just can’t believe that I’ve done that,” Kinghorn said.

“I didn’t want to celebrate too early. I just wanted to definitely make sure that my name was at the top of that screen so it took a little moment to actually compose myself and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve actually just done that.’”

Kinghorn is the first non-Chinese athlete to win the Paralympic T53 100m since Briton Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson triumphed in Athens in 2004.

The Scot and Debrunner will line up against each other again on Thursday over 400m.

Britain have so far won seven medals in Para-athletics in Paris, with Kinghorn providing three of them.

Silver Sammi is no more.

“Gosh, it’d be amazing to win a gold medal,” she told the BBC on Tuesday, after coming second in the 1500m. She did not have to wait long to experience that feeling.

The gusto with which she rang the victory bell in the Stade de France was a clue to just how exciting and emotional it was to upgrade her medal collection.

“I sobbed the whole way round my victory lap, just sobbed the whole time,” she said.

“Tokyo was my first Paralympic medals but with nobody in the stands and that for me was pretty heartbreaking. I’ve got 29 people out there with posters of my face. To do it in front of all them is so incredibly special because although it’s an individual sport I have a huge team besides me.”

Kinghorn was 14 when she broke her back in an accident on her family’s farm in 2010, snow and ice falling from a roof and crushing her.

She spent six months at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow before being told she would never walk again.

“When I had my accident, my body was torn down to nothing. I rebuilt it in training and that was something that helped me accept this new me,” she said.

“My physio at the spinal unit in Glasgow, without her I would not be here now. She saw something in me. I always loved sport before my accident and she got me into trying lots of different sports.

“I went down to try wheelchair racing and Ian Thompson, Tanni-Grey Thompson’s husband, said to me ‘Oh, you could be good at this.’ Straight away that was a switch. Something quite traumatic had just happened to me and I didn’t know if I was ever going to be good at anything ever again. I remember thinking ‘OK, great, that’s what I’m going to do.'”

Kinghorn’s first Paralympic gold follows three world titles, the most recent over 100m in Paris last year when she also got the better of Debrunner.

There could be more medals in Paris for both of them. After the 400m on Thursday, Kinghorn has the 4x100m universal relay on Friday while, incredibly, Debrunner will contest the marathon on Sunday.

In Wednesday’s morning session, Briton Karim Chan, 23, just missed out on bronze in the T38 long jump, his best of 6.39m beaten by a centimetre in the final round by Jose Gregorio Lemos Rivas of Colombia.

Khetag Khinchagov, of the Neutral Paralympic Athletes, took gold with 6.52m, just ahead of China’s Zhong Huanghao (6.50m).

The T64 version of the event remains the domain of ‘Blade Jumper’ Markus Rehm, who won his fourth Paralympic long jump title with a leap of 8.13m.

Rehm, who lost his right leg below the knee in a wakeboarding accident in 2003 and jumps using a bladed prosthesis, holds the world record at 8.72m – the ninth longest jump of all time.

He is unable to compete at the Olympics because it was ruled that jumping off his prosthesis gives him an advantage over non-amputees.

There was a big name beaten with eight-time Paralympic champion Tatyana McFadden having to settle for silver in the T54 100m.

The American broke the Paralympic record in the morning heats, clocking 15:55 seconds, but Belgium’s Lea Bayekula improved that time further in the final with 15.50.

McFadden’s 15.67 gave her silver with Amanda Kotaja of Finland taking bronze in 15.77.