Tokyo Paralympic Games 2020 day six: shooting begins, athletics and more – live! | Sport

They’re falling like ninepins. I don’t know what a ninepin is, that’s one sport I haven’t had time to research. In the women’s F54 seated shot put the new mark goes to Chile’s Francisca Mardones Sepulveda. The old mark belonged to her too, but she throws 8.33m today for gold.

Silver for Mexico, and Gloria Zarza Guadarrama. Bronze for Uzbekistan’s Nurkhon Kurbanova.

Javelin: It’s a subcontinental sweep, as Devendra throws 61.23 and can’t pass Mudiyanselage. And in a lovely moment, the Indian athlete runs straight over to the Sri Lankan and throws his arms around him. Genuine congratulations.

Mudiyanselage doesn’t take his final throw. No need. He has a world record and a gold medal. He is given a Sri Lankan flag, and instead of running around with it right away, he spreads it out on the track and kneels in front of it, bowing his head to the ground.

Sri Lanka’s first medal of these Games is gold.

Javelin: Last chance for Guillermo Varona Gonzalez of Cuba. An athlete throwing with his left arm, missing his right hand. He shouts a battle cry at the top of his run to motivate himself. Screams his javelin into the sky. It’s good! Well past 60 metres… but how far? 61.86. It won’t be enough. He stays in fourth.

Sundar Singh Gurjar bails out on his throw, and has time to go back and try again. Still can’t get his runup the second time. He’s got the Steve Harmisons. This time he overshoots the front line and the flag goes up. That’s his day done, with a bronze medal round his neck. But he’ll be left wondering what might have happened had he got that last throw away.

Archery: Phoebe Paterson Pine, the Triple P, the triple threat, has won her quarter final against Julie Chupin in the women’s individual compound. The last time the British beat the French in the archery was the Battle of Crécy.

Sodnompiljee Enkhbayar does indeed win the powerlifting final in the men’s -107kg division. He lifted 241, then 245, then tried to break his own world record of 247 from 2019. Didn’t succeed, but he’s still eight kilos clear of his nearest opponent.

Silver goes to Malaysia! Their second medal of the games, after a gold that also came in powerlifting. Yee Khie Jong is the medallist here with 237 kilograms. Bronze, Razi Saman of Iran with 231.

Javelin: Not great rhythm for Devendra’s fifth throw, and he deliberately oversteps after watching the javelin in the air for a while, as if to stay that a 55-ish metre score isn’t even worth recording on his sheet. Mudiyanselage also gets flagged for his fifth throw. One more each!

Javelin: Sundar Singh Gurjar has just broken the old world record as well, throwing 64.01m to push the Cuban Gonzalez into fourth place. So two Indian throwers and one Sri Lankan have beaten Devendra’s previous world mark today, and Gonzalez will need to do the same to get back into the medals.

Avani Lekhara wins in the women’s 10m standing SH1. Hard not to, with a world record performance, though that hasn’t helped some other athletes including her compatriot right now in the javelin.

She takes gold ahead of Zhang Cuiping (China) and Iryna Shchetnik (Ukraine).

Football: Speaking of Brazil, they lead Japan 1-0 in the men’s 5-a-side. First half. A win means guaranteed qualification for either side.

If any Indian fans need cheering up, you’ve held on for a silver medal in the men’s F56. Our friend dos Santos does set a new Games record with his final throw, for 45.59m, but he was already past Yogesh Kathuniya in second. Bronze goes to Cuba, congrats to Leonardo Diaz Aldana.

In the men’s F45, ongoing, Dinesh Priyan Herath Mudiyanselage has beaten the world record by almost four metres. Crazy stuff. It previously belonged to India’s athlete Devendra, who just goes by that one name, and may have been a real hindrance to Devendra Banhart’s solo career. The javelin Devendra would have broken his own world record today, throwing 64.35 compared to his previous 63.97. But old mate Dinesh has come along and blown him out of the water.

Shooting: Indian Games fans – Avani Lekhara has just equalled the world record in the 10m air rifle, shooting 249.6. Some competitors haven’t finished yet, but let’s just bookmark that…

Discus: Things are hotting up in the F56. Claudiney Batista dos Santos has stepped up for Brazil and overthrown (in a literal sense) Yogesh Kathuniya. The new gold throw is 45.25, and dos Santos also owns a world record more than a metre beyond that. Yogesh drops to silver, and can’t make up ground – in discus three athletes at a time have all their throws at once, then we move onto the next group.

Speaking of powerlifting, the second-biggest big boys are out on the bench. These are the -107kg lifters, not to be confused with the +107kg lifters, who can be any size from 107 up to The Fleshlumpeater. And in some cases, would be able to bench the Fleshlumpeater.

Today’s entrants are more in the BFG range, perhaps. Mongolia is a mile in the lead, with Sodnompiljee Enkhbayar having pumped 241 kegs worth of iron. His nearest competitors have done 220 and 218. The bottom of the table is finishing up on second lifts.

For fans of firearm work, even without involving fire, the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 final is supposed to have started. I haven’t seen any news from the range. This is another event that isn’t being televised, at least not anywhere I can access it. Not sure if that’s a Channel 7 thing or an IOC thing. Powerlifting and archery are others where there’s been no stream offered. Cheers.

I tell you what, I’m going to hear that choral Tokyo music in my dreams. I will wake up as an old man years from now thinking that I’m back here. There is always a medal ceremony going on in the background somewhere. Aaaaah-ah-ah-aaaaah-ah-ah-aaaaah…

Shot put: That is Uzbekistani gold medal No5 (a lesser known Lou Vega tune). Bobirjon Omonov wins it in the F41, which is the short stature category. He thumps out a shot put 14.06 metres for a new Games record, while Hagan Landry gets a regional record and a silver medal for the USA. Germany’s Niko Kappel wins bronze.

Amir Khosravani has the medal in his grasp before taking his last jump, but still gives it a go to land 6.91. He set the early standard with 7.21 on his second jump, and no one caught him.

Long jump: Leinier Savon Pineda is in third place… and he leaps into silver! He jumps 7.16 on his final attempt for the day, a regional record for the Cuban, and five centimetres from the gold.

Said Najafzade has one chance to take the silver back for Azerbaijan, but can’t do it. His day’s best was 7.03, and he wins bronze.

Long jump: Siarhei Burdukou stays in sixth, the Belarussian never bettering his first jump of 6.74.

Kamil Aliyev did best on his fifth jump, and nearly tops his 6.89 but not quite on the sixth. Azerbaijan stays fifth.

Doniyor Saliev (Uzbekistan) stays in fourth, can’t top his earlier 6.92.

Long jump: A couple of the T12 jumpers have finished their day early. The Cuban Angel Jimenez Cabeza injured his leg during an earlier jump and hobbled off. Didn’t see what happened with Germany’s Marcel Boettger, but he was coming last after three jumps and hasn’t gone since. The remaining athletes start their sixth and final jumps. First, the two Swedes, who don’t improve their position at the current bottom of the standings.

Rheed McCracken wins his third silver medal in this event across the last three Paralympic Games. Extraordinary record in the T34 wheelchair sprint. The gold is taken in a new Games record by Tunisia, with Walid Ktila speeding through in 15.01. McCracken was on his hammer throughout but couldn’t catch up. Mohammed Alhammadi wins bronze for the UAE.

Football: China score with three minutes left! The French keeper Allesandro Bartolomucci has been outstanding all game. He has made several top-class saves, and picked out his players cleverly for distribution, while the deadlock 0-0 has continued. But right near the end, there’s a restart with the French wall in place. Bartolomucci is unsighted briefly as one of his defenders drifts across him, and Zhu Ruiming unleashes a powerful shot right at the goalkeeeper’s face. His attempted save is reflex, saving himself as much as the goal, and he gets gloves to it but the ricochet takes it into the net.

Frederic Villeroux weaves through the Chinese defence to shoot with 30 seconds left, but can’t get enough on the shot. China win 1-0. They sit third in their group behind Japan and Brazil, who play one another later today.

Great Britain’s wheelchair racer gets it done in the T33 final. His wheel is bobbling in the last few strokes as Ahmad Almutairi of Kuwait closes on him. But Small hangs on, and Harri Jenkins crosses the line in third.

Discus: In the men’s F56 seated competition, India’s Yogesh Kathuniya has had a lot of foul throws, but has also clocked the three biggest of the competition so far. Three athletes done, five to go, and the leading mark is 44.38 metres, a couple of metres short of the world record.

Long jump: Three jumps apiece in the T12, and Iran’s Khosravani still leads. Azerbaijan second, Uzbekistan third.

Football: Still 0-0 in the 5-a-side between China and France.

Archery: Stretton shoots a 10 first up. Paterson Pine matches it. Hard for Stretton to come back from here. She shoots nine, then a ten. Paterson Pine shoots nine, then nine. So Stretton wins the set. But that makes it 2-2, and I think that means PPP takes the match on overall standings by a single point. 140 to 141. Neither archer shot less than a nine all match.

Mind you, there has been some phenomenal shooting so far in Tokyo’s morning. France’s Julie Chupin set a Games record with 145 earlier, only for Italy’s Elonora Sarti to shoot 146 in the very next match. Nice while it lasted, Julie.

Archery: Nines to start the fourth set, once, twice. Stretton hits double figures with her last arrow! Paterson Pine must respond… and does! Set tied, 28-28. One to go. Overall score 111-113 in favour of PPP.

Long jump: Iran’s Amir Khosravani hits the front with a jump of 7.21 metres.

Archery: Swinging back the other way again. Stretton is the one to shoot nines, while Paterson Pine hits the middle twice for 27-29.

Archery: The second set goes 28-27 to Stretton. Paterson Pine shoots all nines.

Archery: Pretty rough for the two British archers to be drawn against each other in the 1/8 elimination final. Given it’s a competition with the focus on nations rather than individuals, that does seem like something that could be avoided. But do I know the complexities of archery seeding and draws? No.

Any rate. Phoebe Paterson Pine wins the first set with a couple of 10s, Jessica Stretton shooting 9-10-9 to cede it 28-29.

Long jump: The early lead goes to Azerbaijan – Said Najafzade jumps 7.00 with his first attempt to set a mark. Six jumps per athlete today.

The women’s 1500 T11 race is dominated by Monica Rodrigues Saavedra. She and her sighted guide get out in front and stay there, and Kevin Aguilar Perez keeps checking back to let her know if they need to push on when someone tries to challenge. The South African Louzanne Coetzee does try to close the gap on the final lap, but it’s already out to a dozen metres or so, and Rodrigues Saavedra extends it to 20 with her final reserves. Nancy Chelangat Koech comes in third for Kenya.

Athletics: The men’s long jump (T12) and discus (F46) finals have started, but those competitions will take a long time. Stand by.

Football: Half time in the morning’s first five-a-side match, in which China and France are both yet to score.

Some pretty special lines from the Australian distance runner and silver medallist.

Before we plough in to today, you might want to take a minute to absorb the images of yesterday.