Paralympians from across the region start Rio glory chase

Paralympians from across the region are all set to go for gold in Rio when the action starts this afternoon.
Ollie HyndOllie Hynd
Ollie Hynd

Swim stars Ollie Hynd, of Kirkby, and Charlotte Henshaw, of Mansfield, lead the medal hopes with Heanor’s Phil Hogg competing in the Paratriathlon event, and Gainsborough’s Jack Hodgson chasing judo glory.

Also, Matlock’s Ryan Cowling is part of the GB wheelchair rugby side and Maddie Thompson, of Buxton, is in the women’s wheelchair basketball squad.

UK Sport has set a target of at least 121 medals at Rio 2016.

Ollie Hynd, who claimed gold, silver and bronze on his Paralympic debut at London 2012 will defend the Paralympic gold title won in London in the SM8 200m individual medley on Saturday, 17th September with the heats at 1.52pm and the final at 9.43pm.

Before that he will go in the S8 400m freestyle this afternoon with the heats at 1.54pm and the final at 9.44pm to try to go one better than his London silver.

Ollie will also try to better his London bronze in the S8 100m backstroke on Tuesday (September 13) with the heats at 3.04pm and final at 11.14pm.

Ollie Hynd MBE is a Paralympic, World, European and Commonwealth Champion, one of the few athletes in history to hold all of those titles at the same time.

Notts Nova team mate CharlotteHenshaw is competing in her third Paralympics and has made the SB6 100m breaststroke into her specialist event, winning silver in London.

Her heats in that will be on Thursday, September 15th at 1.55pm with the final at 9.50pm.

Charlotte has been on the British team for almost 10 years and has consistently won medals at major competitions.

At London 2012, she set a new Paralympic record of 1:39.64 in the qualifying heats of the 100m breaststroke SB6 and in doing so beating the Paralympic record set by teammate Liz Johnson in the first heat just minutes previously.

In the final, she further reduced this time to 1:39.16, but finished just 0.03 seconds behind Viktoriia Savtsova to take the silver medal as Johnson took bronze.

Heanor paratriathlete Phil Hogg will compete in the PT1M category race on Saturday (3.20pm).

That comprises a gruelling 0.75km swim, a 20.64km bike ride and a 5.05km run.

Gainsborough judo player Jack Hodgson also competes in the B2 men’s +100 category on Saturday with the preliminary round at 2.05pm and the competition going through the day until the gold medal contest at 9.55pm.

Matlock wheelchair rugby player Ryan Cowling is part of the mixed open GB side playing in Pool Phase Group A.

They begin their glory chase on Wednesday 14th at 2.30pm with a game against Australia.

Canada are next up at 4.45pm on Thursday, 15th, and finally Brazil at 4.45 on Friday, 16th.

The semi finals and finals will be held over September 17th/18th.

Buxton’s Maddie Thompson is also part of the women’s wheelchair basketball which takes place from tomorrow (8th) through to September 17th.

Following on from their BAFTA award-winning efforts of London 2012, Channel 4 is committed to broadcasting 165 hours of sport, over the course of 11 days hosted by the largest number of disabled presenters ever seen on UK television.

They also have daily live streams on their website, giving access to over 600 hours of coverage.

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