Gilliver wins silver for GB in wheelchair fencing

Piers Gilliver won the full set of gold, silver and bronze medals in wheelchair fencing at Tokyo 2020

Piers Gilliver claimed wheelchair fencing silver for Great Britain in the men's sabre A event at the Paralympics in Paris.

Gilliver was beaten 15-8 by Germany's Maurice Schmidt in the gold medal bout at the Grand Palais.

Neither competitor led by more than two hits in the final until Schmidt, who trailed 8-7 at the end of the first period, registered eight successive hits to clinch gold.

Gilliver had been a comfortable 15-8 winner over Matteo dei Rossi of Italy in his quarter-final, but his semi-final was a much closer affair, with the Englishman coming from 8-3 behind to beat Ukraine's Artem Manko 15-14.

"I’m pretty gutted. I hoped to come here and win the gold but it didn’t work out on the day," Gilliver said.

"The competition days are always really tough and it’s hard to process. Once the Games come to a close, you can really look back and be proud of winning a medal - it’s a big deal."

The 29-year-old added Paralympic silver to the 2023 World Championship silver and the European title he won earlier this year in the sabre A category.

Gilliver, from the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, became Great Britain's first Paralympic gold medallist in wheelchair fencing for 33 years when he won epee A gold in Tokyo in 2021.

He will defend that title on Friday, while he will also be competing in the men's foil team and men's epee team events.

Coutya and Collis miss out on medals

Gilliver was one of three British wheelchair fencers in action in the first of five days of competition at the Paralympics.

Dimitri Coutya narrowly lost his quarter-final contest 15-13 to Poland's Adrian Castro in the men's sabre B and got to round three of the repechage - which could have provided him with an opportunity to win a bronze medal - before losing 15-13 to Dmytro Serozhenko of Ukraine.

Coutya, who will return to action in the men's foil B on Wednesday, told BBC Sport: "Even though there were some very close calls today, I lost fair and square to people that are better than me.

"In all honesty, given sabre isn't my favoured weapon out of the three that I'm competing in this week, I'm really happy with the control and consistency of performance I've shown."

Gemma Collis was beaten in the last 16 of the women's sabre A and, like Coutya, reached round three of the repechage before losing 15-10 to Brianna Vide of France.

"Today was such a mixed one," she said.

"The first round didn't go exactly how I would have liked it to go. I went straight into the repechage. But I think there was always a possibility of that because I had such an incredibly tough draw in the last 16.

"But I was really proud of the way I picked myself up for the next fight in the repechage. That was a really convincing performance and then another good performance against a top fencer. I'm just a little bit gutted with the way it ended."

Collis will return to action on Friday for the epee A event.