Tokyo 2020 Paralympics day one: swimming, cycling, wheelchair rugby and more – live!

Cycling: I was glad to see an Australian rider named Meg Lemon on the card. She’s qualified to ride for bronze in the C4 individual pursuit against Canada’s Keely Shaw, with Petricola tackling USA’s Shawn Morelli for gold.

But then the commentators kept pronouncing her as Meg Le Mon. I hope that’s just their error. Because, mate. If you want to say it like that, put a space in it.

Lemons stand proud, acerbic, full of zest.

“I misread your first missive and thought it said NZ v Aus in the wheelchair rugby. Huge grudge match!” writes Joe Barnes. “What is wheelchair rugby? I bet those athletes are as hard as nails, is it a bit brutal?”

It is. For endurance as well as collisions. It’s honesty more like NFL then rugby, in that players can pass forward and score in an endzone. It’s played on a basketball style court with a round ball. Players throw passes on the full or on the bounce to teammates, and can race around with the ball on their laps. Someone has to roll through the endzone or catch it in the endzone to score. Collisions are allowed, through players don’t grab each other’s bodies or chairs.

Goalball: The Russians beat Canada 5-1 in the first game of the women’s comp.

Wheelchair rugby: Look away, New Zealanders: the USA leads New Zealand 6-3. Trailing America in any form of rugby must be mortifying.

That’s all of the swimming until the finals begin at 17:00 hours Tokyo time.

Swimming: Ben Popham qualifies fastest for Australia in the men’s 100m S8 third heat, swimming 58.95. Only three other swimmers across the heats dip under one minute.

Wheelchair basketball: The Dutch are hanging in there with the States near the end of the first quarter, 12-14.

Swimming: Antoni Bertran Ponce qualifies first for Spain in the men’s 200m freestyle S5. Great Britain get a double in the women’s equivalent: Susanna Hext in one heat and Tully Kearney in the other.

Wheelchair fencing: There is no television coverage of this event, for a reason that I don’t know. Literally zero. Not on any of the streams, and it’s listed on the Games site as being untelevised. Which means that I can’t tell you much, as there are a million bouts being held today. They’re all part of a pool round, where each fencer fights a range of opponents, so if you’re following someone in particular check here.

Cycling: Another one down! Emily Petricola in the women’s C4 individual pursuit burns around in 3:38:061, breaking her own record by over six seconds. The Australian women are having a good time on the track.

Wheelchair basketball: Algeria got towelled up by China in the opening women’s match, going down 25 to 74. Ouch. Netherlands USA up next.

Cycling: So in the women’s C1-C3 individual pursuit, Paige Greco and Wang Xiaomei will race for gold later in the day. At 13:52 Tokyo time to be precise. Germany and the USA will race for bronze, via Denise Schindler and Clara Brown.

Swimming: For Australia, Ahmed Kelly sneaks into the final for the men’s 50m SB3. Rowan Crowthers qualifies first for the men’s 50m S10, with Thomas Gallagher also through. Keira Stephens misses out in the women’s equivalent, as does Kirralee Hayes in the women’s 100m butterfly S13.

Elizabeth Marks of the USA qualifies fastest in the women’s 50m S6. Ihar Boki of Belarus leads the men’s 100m butterly S13.

Cycling: As anticipated! She carves it down to 3:52:283 around the velodrome. Between she and Wang, they’ve taken nearly eight seconds off the previous world record today.

Men’s 100m butterfly S14: And speaking of them changing hands quickly – Australia’s Liam Schluter sets a new Paralymic record in the first heat, swimming 58.38 in the fly. He then watches three swimmers beat it in the very next heat. Then five more swimmers go past it in the third! Jesus, are they swimming in water or rocket fuel? The sixth swimmer in the third heat ties Schluter’s time (I’m not sure who’s ahead if we go deep into the decimals.)

So poor old Liam breaks the record in heat one, then doesn’t make the final.

Reece Dunn of Great Britain now holds the new, many-times-changed Paralympic record of 55.99. He already has the world record mark of 54.56, so he probably has more in the tank for the final. Australia gets Ricky Betar and Benjamin Hance into that final too.

Table tennis: Rebecca Julian has just completed her first match, representing Australia. One for cricket lovers: her cousin is Australia’s most entertaining player with the bat, Glenn Maxwell. Her first match is a clinical loss to Ukraine’s Maryna Lytovchenko, but she’ll be back. No one gets mad if you play a switch hit in table tennis.

Cycling: We saw a lot of world records fall at the velodrome during the Olympics, often just a few minutes apart. The women’s C1-C3 individual pursuit (held over 3000 metres has a new mark: Wang Xiaomei of China has become the first woman get get below four minutes, and has smashed past it with 3:55:781. On her qualifying lap.

The twist: she takes the record from Australia’s Paige Greco, who set it in 2019, and is due to race shortly.

Table tennis: Koyo wins! Gets enough space to really lay into his forehand on a couple of occasions, which Facey Thompson can’t handle, and that gets Koyo another match point. This time he takes it. But these are group matches, there is no elimination as yet.

Table tennis: Koyo gets out to a 10-7 lead, but Facey Thompson saves three match point and gets back to 10-all!

Table tennis: Ashley Facey Thompson playing out a cracker with Iwabuchi Koyo. They’re 5-4 in the fifth set.

Women’s 100m butterfly S14: Valeriia Shabalina, the Russian world record holder, wins her heat. No surprise, but Australia’s Paige Leonhardt got the best start off the blocks and led Shabalina past the turn. Just that Shabalina’s burst of closing speed was unstoppable. They both qualify faster than Chan Yui Lam of China in heat one. GBR’s Jessica-Jane Applegate qualifies second in that heat, along with her compatriot Louise Fiddes and Australia’s Ruby Storm as the third-placed swimmers in each. Moemi Kinoshita (Japan) and Cheung Ho Ying (China) round out the eight.

Table tennis: Australia’s Ma Lin, the four-time winner of gold, has breezed past Great Britain’s Joshua Stacey in straight sets. Ashley Facey Thompson has levelled his match 1-1.

Goalball: Brazil win the opening men’s match 11-2, against a strong Lithuanian side.

Women’s 100m backstroke S2: Only nine competitors across the two heats in this event, and the top eight qualify. Katarina Draganov-Cordas of Serbia is the swimmer to drop out.

Men’s 100m backstroke S2: Vladimir Danilenko qualifies fastest for Russia, a split second faster than the other heat led by Chile’s Alberto Abarza.

Table tennis: Australia’s Lina Lei has won her opening match against Brazil’s Jennyfer Marques Parinos in straight sets. Great Britain’s Ashley Facey Thompson is trailing Japan’s Iwabuchi Koyo and has just lost the first set.

Goalball: Brazil are bossing this opening men’s match, leading 7-1 at a timeout in the second period.

Women’s 400m freestyle S9: Fastest qualifier here is the Hungarian swimmer Zsofia Konkoly, with Toni Shaw of Great Britain not far behind. The other heat goes slower, with an Australian one-two of Ellie Cole and Lakeisha Patterson. Cole goes out hard in the first two laps and holds a lead, with Patterson happy to hang behind. The eight fastest swimmers will go through.

Men’s 400m freestyle S9: Australia’s Alexander Tuckfield qualifies fastest for the final, with compatriots William Martin and world-record holder, Brenden Hall qualifying from the other heat. Simone Barlaam of Italy wins that second heat, about three seconds slower than the first.

Plenty. Times are as per Tokyo, which is GMT+9. Add one more hour for Australia, minus 8 hours for the UK, scan from there for your timezone of choice.

9am – Swimming. Heats for freestyle ranging from 50m to 400m, the 100m butterfly and 100m breaststroke. The medals start from 5pm.
9am – Goalball. Brazil and Lithuania in the men’s comp start the first of seven games today.
9am – Wheelchair fencing. Preliminary bouts have just begun and run through straight into the quarterfinals. The semis and finals start from 15:30.
9am – Table tennis. A whole stack of singles matches happening through the next six hours.
10am – Wheelchair basketball. Algeria play China in the women’s group B match. Netherlands USA at 11:15. Great Britain and Canada at 14:25. Australia and Japan at 17:00. The men’s match between Spain and Korea is at 20:30.
10am – Track cycling. Qualifying for the individual pursuit categories starts here. The medal races start from 13:45.
11:30 – Wheelchair rugby. USA and New Zealand first up in the mixed preliminaries. Australia Denmark at 14:00, Great Britain Canada at 17:30, Japan France at 20:00.