Tokyo 2020 Day 12: Ones to Watch

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games will come to an end this Sunday, 5 September, but for some athletes there is no closing ceremony feelings yet - there is still time to watch some of the best.

After helping the USA win the first-ever 4x100m universal relay final, Tatyana McFadden will try to claim her first Paralympics marathon title in the T54 class. Hot competition for her should come from fellow great Wakako Tsuchida. The 45-year-old Japanese – at her seventh Games – says that Tokyo will be the highlight of a truly incredible career. 

In Para badminton, Korea's Kim Jung Kim enters the WH2 class doubles and singles finals as favourite. And setter Kaleo Kanahele Maclay is a key player in the USA’s sitting volleyball team, winning silver at London 2012 and gold at Rio 2016. Still just 25, she will be crucial as the defending champions seek to retain their crown against China. 

Here's more about these star athletes featured on day 12, the last of the Games. 

Tatyana McFadden (USA) - athletics
One of the best female wheelchair racers of all time, McFadden has 20 Paralympic medals to her name, including eight golds, since her debut at Athens 2004. She needed to win at least five more in Tokyo to overtake Canadian legend Chantal Petitclerc as the female track & field athlete with more medals ever, but she only got three so far - gold in the first-ever 4x100m universal relay, a silver in the women's 800m T54 and a bronze in the women's 5000m T54. The American finished fourth in the women's 400m T54 and fifth in the 1500m T54. Today she will compete in the marathon T54 and try to add to her tally of 23 titles in this distance the first in a Paralympic Games. McFadden was one of the Para athletes featured in Netflix's ground-breaking Paralympic documentary Rising Phoenix.

Wakako Tsuchida (JPN) - athletics
At her seventh edition of the Paralympic Games, 45-year-old Tsuchida is the local country's hopes for a good result in the T54 marathon. She says that Tokyo will be the highlight of a truly incredible career that started in 1996, when she took up Para athletics, and includes three medals in the Paralympics: a gold in the women's 5000m T54 and a silver in the marathon T54 in the 2004 Athens Games, and a bronze again in the marathon at Sydney 2000. She also won two gold medals in ice sledge speed racing at the 1998 Paralympic Winter Games in Nagano and represented Japan in Para triathlon, winning a silver medal at the 2018 World Championships in Gold Coast, Australia.  

Kim Jung Jun (KOR) - para badminton
Having won the past four World Championships, Kim is the strong favourite for gold in the badminton men’s singles WH2. He will also play in the doubles final in the same category. Despite an ongoing rivalry with Hong Kong’s Chan Ho Yuen, when it has come to the biggest tournaments, Kim continues to prove clutch. He clinched his fourth consecutive singles world title over Chan in 2019 but knows the Hong Kong athlete is hoping for revenge on the biggest stage this summer. 

Kaleo Kanahele Maclay (USA) - sitting volleyball
The setter is a key player in the USA’s sitting volleyball team, winning silver at London 2012 and gold at Rio 2016. Still just 25, she will be crucial as the defending champions seek to retain their crown. Besides a successful career that includes awards of best setter at the 2018 World Championships and the 2019 Parapan American Games in Lima, Peru, she owns 'Flower & Flour', a coffee, bakery and flower shop in her hometown Oklahoma City.