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Military hero Jaco van Gass stormed to cycling gold in Paris after fearing his Paralympic dream was ruined when he was sent “flying over the bonnet” of a car just days before the Games.
The Afghanistan veteran suffered a cut to his head and severe bruising to his knee following a collision with a Renault while on a recce of the road race course in the French capital.
He felt “heartbroken” in hospital but recovered sufficiently to stylishly retain his C3 3000m individual pursuit title on the track by winning Friday’s battle of the Britons against Scottish rider Fin Graham.
Visually-impaired cyclist Lizzi Jordan also claimed gold on a successful afternoon for ParalympicsGB at the velodrome, while Blaine Hunt joined Graham in delivering silver and Sophie Unwin and Matthew Robertson clinched bronzes.
“There was a static car that pulled out in front of me, didn’t see me, and I went flying over the bonnet,” said Van Gass, sporting a cut on the right side of his face from last Friday’s crash.
“I was heartbroken. I was literally like this could be my Paralympics done.
“The next day is always the hardest because that’s when your body is at its most pain.
“You’re very sore and stiff and so the Saturday was very hard to comprehend would I be riding.
“The biggest concern was my knee. My knee hit the car and I had bruising on the bone so I just had to ice that on a regular basis.
“It wasn’t a hit and run. The gentleman stopped, he got out and he helped me. There was an ambulance very quickly on the scene.”
Team-mate Graham took the world record in the heats before Van Gass, who lost his left arm at the elbow after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while serving with the Parachute Regiment in 2009, quickly snatched it back, with a time of 3:15.488.
The pair then went head-to-head, with the South Africa-born rider again coming out on top – with a winning margin of more than four seconds – to add to the two golds and bronze he won on debut at Tokyo 2020.
Van Gass, who was watched by wife Kathryn, said: “I’ve got a fairly big friends and family group here.
“Seeing them here, their support, their love, their messages the last couple of days was incredible. It really carried me through quite a hard time
“I went into Tokyo as a bit of an underdog. To retain that title is a dream come true.
“Fin is a phenomenal rider. Seeing him break that record just gave me a hunger in the belly to go harder.”
Graham, who was also runner-up to Van Gass three years ago in Japan, said: “It’s a carbon copy to the Tokyo result.
This event is the strongest rider on the day wins and today that was Jaco— Fin Graham
“Obviously it would have been nice to have had a bit of a different one, but this event is the strongest rider on the day wins and today that was Jaco.
“He’s shown that in the past and it’s like, yeah, break a world record in qualifying and then have it for about five minutes before he takes it off me.”
Jordan, who lost her eyesight after contracting a rare strain of E. coli bacteria as a university student, then topped the podium alongside pilot Danni Khan in the women’s B 1000m time trial.
“The word disabled seems really negative but I just think I’ve got a different ability now, not necessarily a disability,” said Jordan.
“I’ve got a different ability to break down the barriers and prove to people that you can achieve things without your sight.
“And, actually, I’ve achieved more without my sight than I did with my sight, so it’s quite crazy really.
“I worked really hard from the bottom to the top, so it’s kind of an amazing story to tell.”
Unwin and pilot Jenny Holl finished third in that event, while Hunt was second in the C4-5 1000m time trial and Robertson third in the men’s C2 3000m individual pursuit.
