Britain’s Lauren Rowles and Gregg Stevenson won a thrilling last-minute Paralympic gold medal in the mixed doubles in Paris.
The duo, who were aiming for a third consecutive Paralympic gold in this division for Great Britain, trailed Chinese duo Lius Shuang and Jijan Jiang in the 2,000m with 100 metres to go.
But the British duo had the perfect moment for their charge and took a spectacular victory in a time of eight minutes and 20.97 seconds.
Shuang and Jiang, who led for much of the race, appeared disheartened as they finished 2.48 seconds behind the British duo to take silver, with Israel finishing in third place.
It is Rowles’ third gold medal, following victories in Tokyo in 2021 and Rio in 2016 with his former partner Laurence Whiteley.
It was the second rowing victory of the day for Great Britain, after Ben Pritchard won gold in the men’s PR1 skull event with a comeback victory of his own.
The Welshman was trailing Italian Giacomo Perini in the first 1500 metres of the 2000 metres.
But Pritchard started with 500 metres to go and won effortlessly on the straight with a time of 9 minutes and 03.84 seconds.
Ukrainian Roman Polianskyi finished second and took silver, more than 10 seconds behind Pritchard.
Pritchard’s victory was Britain’s first in the division since Tom Aggar’s gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games.
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In the PR3 mixed double sculls, Britain’s Annie Caddick and Sam Murray won silver from Germany.
Australian duo Nikki Ayers and Jed Altschwager won their first Para rowing gold, leaving Caddick and Murray to battle it out with Jan Helmich and Hermine Krumbein for silver.
The German duo were more than three seconds behind the Brits with 500 metres to go, but they pushed hard in the final quarter of the race.
However, Caddick and Murray managed to hold on and finished in second place with a lead of 0.12 seconds.
