Liam Malone does 200m and 400m double at Rio Paralympics

Liam Malone completed a T44 200m and 400m double on Thursday as the New Zealand ‘blade runner’ broke the Paralympic record to claim victory over the one-lap event.

Clocking 46.20, Malone, who is a double below-knee amputee, smashed the T43 Paralympic record mark of 46.68 which had been set by South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius in 2012 to beat Germany’s David Behre, who also dipped under the old record mark with 46.23, and USA’s Hunter Woodhall with 46.70.

In a race featuring T43 and T44 sprinters, Michail Seitis of Greece improved his own T44 world record with his time of 49.66 for sixth.

Malone’s second gold came after the 22-year-old also claimed 100m silver behind Britain’s Jonnie Peacock.

Competing at his fourth Paralympic Games, and after two bronze medals in 2004 and two silvers in 2012, Marcel Hug finally got a Paralympic gold as the wheelchair racer won the T54 800m in dominant fashion. Clocking 1:33.76, the Swiss seven-time world gold medallist took the title ahead of Tunisia’s Yassine Gharbi, but the runner-up was later disqualified and so silver was claimed by Thailand’s Saichon Konjen ahead of South Korea’s Kim Gyu Dae.

Britain’s six-time Paralympic gold medallist David Weir has said this will be his last Paralympic Games and after finishing sixth in the 800m final he hinted that the two-lap event in Rio …

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