Libby Clegg completes sprint double at Rio 2016

Britain’s Libby Clegg and her guide runner Chris Clarke completed a sprint double at the Rio Paralympic Games on Tuesday, breaking the Paralympic record to add T11 200m gold to her 100m title claimed four days before.

Clegg, who only started working with GB international and 20.22 200m man Clarke in February, kept her composure after home favourite and three-time Paralympic gold medallist Guilhermina Terezinha was disqualified for a false start. The Briton went on to clock 24.51 ahead of China’s four-time 2015 world gold medallist Cuiqing Liu with 24.85 and London 2012 T12 100m champion Zhou Guohua with a 24.99 PB for her second Paralympic gold after T12 100m silver medals at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

Like Zhou, visually impaired sprinter Clegg was reclassified from a T12 to T11 athlete only earlier this year, which means she must now wear a blindfold to compete. Despite the changes in 2016, together with the fact that she was forced to withdraw from last year’s IPC World Championships through injury and just 10 months ago also lost her Lottery funding, Clegg has been in the form of her life. She went into the Games as the 200m world record-holder, the 26-year-old in July having taken 0.23 off a mark which had been set by Guilhermina in 2012, and Clegg is now the world record-holder for both events after also lowing the 100m mark to 11.91 in her semi-final in Rio.

Speaking with AW ahead of the Games, Clarke explained how Clegg “should be aiming for double gold” and their hard work over the past few months paid off.

Britain’s six-time …

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