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Great Britain's Kadeena Cox defends Paralympic title in world record fashion
The 30-year-old Para cyclist successfully kicks off multi-sport campaign which will also see her competing in athletics 27 Aug 2021
A world record capped a "near-perfect" race for Great Britain's Kadeena Cox as she retained her title in the women's track cycling 500m time trial C4-5 on Friday (27 August) to kick-start another Paralympic multi-sport campaign in Tokyo.
"It feels amazing. I knew I was going to have to do something special," said Cox, who also aims to defend her athletics 400m T38 title from Rio 2016.
"If I put everything together that me and my coach had worked on, it would be amazing. And that's what happened (laughs). I'm so happy. I executed a race that was near-perfect."
Cox beat silver medallist Canada's Kate O'Brien's world-leading mark from January 2020 by 0.79 of a second to win gold in 34.433 seconds and kick back from a difficult past year.
"I've pretty much been injured since my last session before the end of last year," the 30-year-old said.
"I've really struggled mentally and it has made my eating disorder creep back up, which has been quite hard. But I have a great support network who have helped get me through and that makes this moment even more special."
In the men's C1-3 1000m time trial, all three medallists set world records in their respective class as China's Li Zhangyu (1:08.347 - C1) defended his title ahead of France's runner-up Alexandre Leaute (1:09.211 - C2). Great Britain's Jaco Van Gass (1:05.569 - C3) took bronze.
"I see this as a revenge for yesterday," said LI, who had also won the men's 3,000m individual pursuit C1 at Rio 2016 but had to settle for bronze in the same event on Thursday.
