Sandilands Breaks World Record and Wins Paralympic Gold

Ben Sandilands, a 21-year-old from Kirkcaldy, secured a Paralympic gold medal in the men's T20 1500m event at the Stade de France, setting a new world record with a time of 3 minutes 45.40 seconds, The Guardian reported. This remarkable performance surpassed the previous record held by the USA’s Michael Brannigan by 0.10 seconds. Sandilands finished more than four seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, Sandro Baessa from Portugal, and Brannigan, the Rio Paralympic champion, came third with a time of 3:49.91.

"It's an amazing feeling," expressed Sandilands, who followed in the footsteps of his fellow Fife AC club-mate Owen Miller, the Tokyo 2021 champion. Grateful for the support of his family, friends, and coach Steve Doig, Sandilands added, "I've put in so much hard work, and the timely execution of my training made the victory and the world record even more incredible."

About 40 minutes later, Marcus Perrineau-Daley captured silver in the men's T53 100m, narrowly missing the top spot to Belgium’s Maxime Carabin. Perrineau-Daley, 35, who was paralyzed following a motorbike accident in 2014, initially led but couldn't maintain his pace against Carabin.

There was, however, disappointment for Jonathan Broom-Edwards. The reigning world champion and Tokyo gold medalist failed to surpass 1.89m in the men's T64 high jump, exiting the competition early, after missing 1.97m and then failing his singular attempt at 2m, which was below his season's best of 2.04m.

Further hope for British medals was sparked as the British 4x100m universal relay team – Sammi Kinghorn, Jonnie Peacock, Zac Shaw, and Ali Smith – displayed an impressive performance. They came second to the record-breaking Chinese team in their heat but qualified third fastest for Friday evening’s final, setting a new European record.

Earlier, SSP wrote that a record-breaking women's match finished at US Open.