GB trio win silvers to add to Paris medal hauls

Poppy Maskill and Rhys Darbey both landed individual medley silvers while Alice Tai also added a silver to her collection in the swimming at the Paris Paralympics.

Maskill claimed her fourth medal of the Games with silver in the SM14 200m medley final behind Neutral Paralympic Athlete Valeriia Shabalina.

It follows her butterfly and freestyle relay golds and individual freestyle silver.

The 19-year-old from Cheshire led at halfway but Shabalina overtook her in the second half of the race to retain the title she won while representing Russia at the Tokyo Games.

Darbey, 17, who was also part of the victorious medley relay team on Sunday, put in a strong finish to edge out Australian Ricky Beter for silver in the men's SM14 medley.

Tai, 25, won S8 400m freestyle silver behind American legend Jessica Long to add to her backstroke gold and medley bronze.

Maskill put in strong butterfly and backstroke legs to hold a narrow advantage over Shabalina but the Russian athlete came through to win in two minutes 22.40 seconds with Maskill 1.53secs back.

"I just tried to push on the fly and back because my breaststroke isn't great and I was just trying not to die too much," she said.

"It felt horrible after the breaststroke so I just had to put my head down and try hard. I didn't think coming here that I could win four medals."

The teenager has another good medal chance in the 100m backstroke on Friday.

Darbey, a silver medallist in the men's SM14 medley at last year's World Championships in Manchester, was also pleased with his efforts in the same event on Wednesday.

Gold went to Canada's Nicholas Bennett in a new Paralympic record of 2:06.05 with Darbey clocking 2:06.61 - 0.07 ahead of Beter.

"I knew we had a good chance in the relay but to get an individual medal means a lot to me," said the Welsh swimmer.

"I've put in a lot of work over the last two years and trained hard and I've worked on my touch so I'm glad to see that it paid off."

Tai is better known as a sprinter but, after swimming the English Channel last year as part of a relay team, she hatched a plan with her coach to go for the 400m freestyle event in Paris

But Long, who has won a gold at every Games since Athens in 2004, when she was just 12 years old, is a formidable opponent with 29 Paralympic medals to her name going into the race.

However, Tai started strongly and led up to the 300m mark as her and Long pulled clear of the rest of the field but the American took control after that and went away to win in 4:48.74 for medal number 30 with Tai finishing in 4:52.24.

"Swimming the Channel definitely opened our eyes up to what was possible" Tai said.

"An hour in the Channel is a lot tougher than swimming for five minutes in a pool so my arguments against doing the 400 free didn't stand.

"It's not an event I look forward to, but I enjoyed racing it here.

"I could see Jess coming through and in that last 100m I thought 'She's got this' but I am really happy and now I have all three medals."

Tai, who will go again in Thursday's S9 50m freestyle, also paid tribute to the 32-year-old American, who has not yet indicated whether she will carry on to a home Games in 2028.

“Jess is such an amazing rival so to be next to her in a race is crazy,” she added. "I have so much respect for her

"She is phenomenal and everyone's hero and I can't speak highly enough of her.

"She has brought Para-swimming up so much and when she hadn't won a medal in her first couple of races here, people thought she wasn't a good swimmer and forgot how much of a legend she is. I am so pleased that she won this one."

And at the other end of the experience spectrum, there was a piece of history as 13-year-old Ismail Barlov won silver for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the men's SB2 50m breaststroke.

Barlov, who turns 14 on Thursday, is the first athlete to win a Paralympic medal for the country in a sport other than sitting volleyball as he finished runner-up to 46-year-old Arnulfo Castorena of Mexico.