Jaco van Gass shakes off collision with car in Paris to take gold in velodrome

Being hit by a car the week before cycling in the Paralympics is not ideal preparation. But it takes more than being sent flying over a bonnet to stop Jaco van Gass – and on Friday afternoon he took gold, defeating teammate Finlay Graham in the C3 3,000m individual pursuit final.

It was one of two gold, two silver and two bronze medals on a bumper day for Paralympic GB in the dripping heat of the velodrome.

Van Gass had been checking out the road and time trial course when a static car pulled out in front of him. For a few hours, he thought his chances of riding had gone. “I was heartbroken … I had a big cut of my head, but I had a few scans and I was cleared, I was looked after really well. The next day is always the hardest because that’s when you’re very sore and stiff. The Saturday was very hard to comprehend – will I be riding? By the Sunday I was on the track.

“I’ve got a fairly big number of friends and family here, their messages over the last couple of days really carried me through a really quite a hard time.”

Van Gass is not a man to shrink away from challenges. He was born in South Africa but moved to the UK to join the parachute regiment. He was nearing the end of his second tour of Afghanistan when he was hit by rocket propelled grenade and seriously injured, including the loss of his left arm below the elbow. After recovering, he has thrown himself into a number of extreme physical challenges, including walking to the South Pole, as well as joining the British para-cycling team.

He won three para medals at Tokyo including gold in the C3 3,000m individual pursuit – the title which he held onto here – but always wanted to win again in a stadium full of energy rather than in front of empty stands. And, with the Games mascot Phryges (a prosthesis on his right leg for the Paralympics), tucked under his left arm, he got his wish, waving at his wife and family, a gold medal round his neck. Silver medallist Graham, who also came second to Van Gass in Tokyo, smiled alongside.

The second gold was won by Lizzi Jordan and her pilot Danni Khan in the women’s B 1,000m time trial, while Sophie Unwin and Jennie Holl won bronze in the same race.

Jordan contracted a rare form of E coli poisoning in 2017 which left her in a two-month coma and resulted in multi organ failure, with her family told she would not pull through. She did, but had lost her sight. “Life as I knew it was over and I started from rock bottom,” she said afterwards. “Sport has given me a sense of purpose again in life, it has given me direction, a sense of achievement and saved me.”

She had never been to a velodrome before she started with the British Cycling foundation team in 2020, and it was a hard journey, but she found a pilot in Khan that she could work with.

“I’m quite an adrenalin junkie really – when I could see I used to be into horse riding and I thought whizzing around the velodrome was very appealing. I love the sense of freedom it gives me because being blind I need a guide for walking around, life’s a little bit slower now but when you’re on the tandem and shooting round the velodrome at 50-60 miles an hour it gives me that sense of speed again really.

“When I acquired a disability, the word disabled seems really negative, I just think I’ve got a different ability now not necessarily a disability, a different ability to break down the barriers that you can achieve things without your sight and actually I’ve achieved more without my sight than I did with my sight so quite crazy really.”

Blaine Hunt, complete with extravagantly curly handlebar moustache and making his Paralympic debut, raced to silver behind Australian Korey Boddington, in the 1000m time trial for C4-5. Matthew Robertson’s bronze in the men’s C2 3,000m individual pursuit was Britain’s 100th Paralympic medal in cycling.