To see a report on Day 3 in BSL from Sign Post (courtesy of SignPost – www.signpostbsl.com), click here.
Athletics
Team GB squad members mingled with supporters to cheer on Lauren Peffers in her bid to win the 400m in the Taipei Stadium this evening.
Peffers was always going to be there or thereabouts after her storming semi-final run but despite straining every sinew down the straight, she could not quite catch her Belarusian rival Tsiarentsyeva.
Lauren now turns to defend her title in the 800m.
Swimming
Hannah Fitton, who landed GB’s first medal of the Games, repeated her bronze feat of yesterday. This time, she took third place in her preferred event, the 200m individual medley.
Hannah’s efforts mean she has two medals in her first-ever Deaflympics at the tender age of 16.
Team Manager Vincent Dickson was ecstatic:
“Hannah sacrificed her social life to put in hard work at the swimming pool and this is the result – a bronze medal with five seconds off her PB. Fantastic!”
Football
Team GB’s hold on the gold medal is over after they crashed to a 3-1 defeat against USA.
Jamie Clarke put GB ahead but the Americans equalised on 24 minutes with a high shot that was beyond the reach of Gary Spotswood.
There was a further setback for Team GB when USA went ahead just before half-time. USA now needed to score just one more goal to send GB crashing out at the first stage and it came with a free kick.
This left GB with a mountain to climb and they threw everything forward in the last few minutes but the ball just would not go in the net.
“It was just not meant to be”, said a rueful captain Jon Evans afterwards.
Team GB finished level on points with the USA but with a poorer goal difference.
Tennis
Lewis Fletcher continued his good form by swiftly seeing off the challenge of his Slovakian opponent 6-2, 6-1 to book his place in the next round.
Darren O’Donnell raced into a 5-0 lead against Gunnar Kett from Germany with the help of some sublime lobs and won the first set, 6-3.
The German took the next set but always looked in some discomfort and walked off the court, seemingly injured while 3-1 down in the decider.
Fletcher and O’Donnell teamed up later on to come back from a set down to win their Doubles match, making it a superb day on court for the British duo.
Anthony Sinclair was in a battle of the baseliners against Japanese teenager Reiki Kajishita. Sinclair took the first set 6-3 but was rattled by an outrageous line call at a crucial point in the second, which he lost 6-4.
A crowd gathered to watch the players in the deciding set, which Kajishita swept away Sinclair’s singles hopes, 6-0.
Daniel Tunstall only had an outside chance against his highly-ranked Hungarian opponent and went out in two sets. Tunstall also lost his Doubles match, with Jamie King.
Full results will be available at the official Deaflympics website. Photos from Day Three can be viewed in the UKDS gallery.
Looking ahead
Team GB Badminton are back in action tomorrow and Rajeev Bagga will start his quest for a sixth straight gold.
Rajeev is a sought-after interviewee for the badminton-mad local media – he was even filmed while attending the venue today as a spectator!
It’s straight to the final of the discus for field athletes Joanne Davison and Bethan Lishman, while our Table Tennisplayers are also in action.
Swimming continue their medal hunt and GB Women’s Football must win their last match, against Russia if they are to avoid the top-seeded Americans in the semi-finals.
For details of GB action at the Deaflympics, check out our schedule.
