Following a mesmerising opening ceremony at the Place de la Concorde, hundreds of Paralympians began their quests for Parisian stardom on day one of the 2024 Games, where Great Britain packed a few medals into their suitcases.
On a mission to better their tally of 124 podium finishes from Tokyo 2020, where 41 gold medals were won, GB celebrated their first Olympic champions in the pool, where Poppy Maskill etched her name into the record books.
The 19-year-old clocked the fastest time in history en route to the Women's 100m butterfly S14 gold medal, touching the wall in a time of 1:03.00, breaking the previous world record jointly held by compatriot Olivia Newman-Baronius and Russian Valeriia Shabalina.
Shabalina posted a former world best time of 1:03.33 before Newman-Baronius matched it in April, but the latter has already been knocked off her throne by Maskill and finished outside the medals in fourth with a time of 1:04.59.
Maskill was one of three Brits to medal in the water on day one, as Tully Kearney's time of 2:46.50 in the Women's 200m freestyle S5 final was enough to see her crowned Paralympic champion, seeing her better her silver from Tokyo 2020 where she also won the corresponding 100m event.
William Ellard took the silver in the men's 100m S14 butterfly final, finishing in a time of 54.86 seconds, just a quarter of a second behind gold medallist Alexander Hillhouse of Denmark, and the 18-year-old bested world record holder Gabriel Bandeira of Brazil, who was third in 55.08 seconds.
GB win two cycling golds after Kadeena Cox crash
© Imago
Another two podium finishes arrived for GB in the velodrome, where in the Men's B 4000m individual pursuit final, Stephen Bate and pilot Christopher Latham clinched the silver medal.
Competing against the Netherlands for the right to be crowned Paralympic champions, Bate and Latham recorded a time of 3:57.652, finishing over two seconds behind the Dutch duo of Tristan Bangma - the Tokyo 2020 champion - and pilot Patrick Bos.
Daphne Schrager also sealed a runners-up placement in her Women's C1-3 3000m individual pursuit final behind China's Xiaomei Wang, but there was agony for four-time Paralympic champion Kadeena Cox.
The reigning world record holder in the Women's C4-5 500m time trial crashed out on the first corner after just eight seconds, allowing the Netherlands' Caroline Groot to dethrone Cox, who had won gold in the event at Rio and Tokyo.
Meanwhile, a bronze was clinched by women's doubles WD14 table tennis pair Felicity Pickard and 14-year-old protege Bly Twomey, who took the first game of their semi-final against China only to suffer a 3-1 defeat.
Ben Knapton
