SportsBritish Husband And Wife Paralympians Win Gold And Break Records On Same...

British Husband And Wife Paralympians Win Gold And Break Records On Same Day

August 28, (THEWILL) – The Paralympics continued on Saturday at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in Japan and witnessed the final of track cycling in the Izu Velodrome with a flurry of medals that included gold for husband and wife Paralympians Neil and Lora Fachie.
Niel finished with a record in the men’s B 1000m time trial ahead of his Team Great Britain teammate James Ball in the time of 58.083 seconds. It was a finish that made certain that Niel and his pilot Matthew Rotherham broke their own world record.
Fachie’s wife Lora, followed that up when she took gold in the women’s B 3000m individual pursuit eventually winning by two seconds in another world record less than an hour later. Katie-George Dunlevy took silver for Ireland’s second medal of the Paralympics. British debutant Sophie Unwin won the bronze race.
The record-breaking achievement of the Fachies brought up the inevitable comparisons to Britain’s other golden couple of cycling – the Kennys. However, the Kenny’s have twelve Olympic gold medals between them for starters.
Obvious of that fact, Neil said after his victory: “The Kennys are an incredible family so to be even in the same sentence as them is amazing. Lora and I have had mixed success over the years. I won in London, she lost out due to a mechanical, she won gold in Rio and I failed there.
“We thought the moment might not actually happen when we both won gold.”
Lora becomes a three-time Paralympic medal winner with her gold in Tokyo. The 32-year-old, who won two golds in Rio in 2016 but could not compete at her home Games in London 2012 due to issues with her equipment.
Her excitement was obvious in her post-victory remarks: “I’ve never successfully defended a title before so I’m just delighted and it’s been an incredible day. For me, it’s been a childhood dream to be a world record holder and I now am, thanks to my pilot Corrine Hall.”
They are still competitive enough to expect more victory celebrations as a couple as Neil, who has retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital eye condition, said: “It’s been a tough year for everyone. Some people have retired from sport and both of us thought that it might be it for us after Tokyo.
“We’ve now both got this renewed love for cycling. We did long rides in lockdown and Lora was absolutely destroying me. I’m a sprinter, I don’t do long rides! I’d get up in the morning and Lora would say: ‘Here we go again!’ But it made me so fit and I really enjoyed it, it was just fun, there was no pressure. I can see why she’s a Paralympic champion.”

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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.

Jude Obafemi, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.

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