Double delight for Dimitri Coutya as brilliant British wheelchair fencers win epee gold and silver in Grand Palais

Dimitri Coutya reigned supreme once again in the Grand Palais tonight as the British wheelchair fencer claimed his second Paralympic gold of the week.
Coutya backed up Wednesday’s foil success by beating Thailand’s Visit Kingmanaw 15-10 in the Category B epee final.
Team-mate Piers Gilliver also reached his third successive Category A epee final but, having won gold in Tokyo, had to settle for silver on this occasion after a 15-12 defeat to China’s Gang Sun.
It was a third medal each so far in Paris for the Bath-based duo, who had won men’s team foil silver with Oliver Lam-Watson on Thursday. Gilliver also won Category A sabre silver on Tuesday.
Couyta – who, like his team-mates, trains in the Wheelchair Fencing National Training Centre at the University of Bath – defeated Noah Hanssen of the United States 15-7 and Italy’s Michele Massa 15-10 before edging out Poland’s Michal Dabrowski 15-13 in the semi-final.
The final against Kingmanaw was evenly matched in the opening stages, with the lead exchanging hands before Coutya decisively pulled clear to secure ParalympicsGB’s 42nd gold of the Games – one more than they achieved in Tokyo three years ago.

The Category A competition saw defending champion Gilliver sweep aside American William Schoonover 15-1 and then came through a tricky quarter-final against China’s Jianquan Tian 15-12 before securing a third successive appearance in a Paralympic epee final by beating Turkey’s Hakkan Akkaya 15-6.
That set up a rematch of the Rio 2016 final against Sun, who had already won foil gold in Paris and opened up a 10-6 lead at the end of the first period. Gilliver fought back brilliantly but his opponent was able to see out a 15-12 victory.
Lam-Watson also contested the Category A epee, overcoming Zainulabdeen Al-Madhkhoori 15-14 in his opening match before losing 15-9 to Emanuele Lambertini in the quarter-finals. He went into the repechage where he defeated Hayder Al-Ogaili 15-12 before his bid for bronze was ended by a 15-11 defeat to Artem Manko.
Gemma Collis, contesting her fourth Paralympic Games, reached the quarter-finals of the women’s Category A epee, beating Zsuzsanna Krajnyak 15-12 before losing 15-7 to Amarilla Veres. She was then defeated by the same scoreline in the repechage by Yevheniia Breus.
A busy week of wheelchair fencing competition concludes on Saturday when Coutya, Gilliver and Lam-Watson contest the men’s team epee. Click here to see the week’s results so far.