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It was a lovely moment at Brands Hatch, laced not just with a sliver of alluring amateurism, but also with a sense of the strictures of competition shrinking just for a moment into the
background of what is at bottom a celebration of sporting heart. A bronze medal for Great Britain's Rachel Morris in the women's individual H1-3 road race was a wonderful story of
triumph against extreme adversity – or in fact additional extreme adversity – in its own right. Not only does Morris live with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a hugely painful nerve condition
that has led in turn to both her legs being amputated, she also suffered a dislocated shoulder in a collision with a car just weeks before these Games, destroying her bike and derailing her
training regime at a single stroke. In the event Morris, who had ruled herself out of podium contention, was party to one of the moments of these Games, slowing as she approached the line in
third place to link hands with her team-mate Karen Darke in a deliberate attempt to cross the line in a dead heat and thereby share the bronze. There was an additional gloss: this was the
medal that would take Great Britain's total past 21, thereby surpassing the achievements of Beijing. For a moment there was even a suggestion it might come off. Morris and Darke were
recorded as finishing in the same time, 1h 43min 08sec, and suggested initially they would refuse to accept the bronze unless it was shared between the two. This, though, was never going to
wash with the race officials, who decided in a photo-finish that Morris had crossed the line marginally in front and awarded her the medal. Albeit not before several paddock wags had
suggested both athletes might stand to be disqualified for refusing to race, just as the Brownlee bothers had been warned before the Olympics against staging a dead heat in the triathlon.
Which, on a sweltering Kent day that saw this grand, slightly rickety old track thronged with a bank holiday-ish crowd, and buoyed a by large and celebratory Irish contingent, might just
have sparked a minor venue revolt. "We wanted it together. We crossed the line with our hands together. So hopefully we'll get a medal each – that's the plan," Morris
said. "We worked so hard together, so we'll both get on the podium together." It wasn't to be though. Darke, who is paralysed from the chest down after falling off a
cliff aged 21, watched as Morris mounted the steps before returning to briefly drape the medal around her team-mate's neck in a lovely display of competitive generosity before all four
fastest finishers – as opposed to the standard three – posed for the photographers. "They both rode out of their skins and we're just as proud of them," the team's
director Chris Furber said, confirming that none of the coaching staff had any idea what the two athletes had in mind as they approached the finish having failed to catch the American pair
of Marianna Davis and Monica Basico. "We were expecting a sprint finish between the two of them for the bronze and even discussing which one we each thought was going to get it,"
Furber said. "Then with 150m to go it became apparent what was going to happen. It was just a really nice moment of friendship. They've been through a lot together in life and in
training. As a coach you're entirely focused on medals and achievement but sometimes it's nice to see that at times friendship can take precedence over anything else in the
sport." Darke, who had already won silver in the H1-2 time trial, is unlikely to spend too long dwelling on what was, in the end, an entirely sensible decision to deny her a share of
the bronze. After returning home to Inverness she will resume preparations for an expedition to the South Pole, having previously crossed Greenland's ice cap on skis, climbed Mont
Blanc, the Matterhorn and California's El Capitan, and hand-cycled all the way across Japan. This is a Paralympic sport of relatively recent vintage, having been introduced at the
Athens Games of 2004. It is a discipline imported from the hand-bikes first introduced in the 1980s for non-disabled riders, and rapidly adopted as a brilliant boon to cycling for those with
impairments to their legs. Riders pedal and steer with their hands, reaching extreme three-wheeled speeds and providing at Brands Hatch not just the spectacle of the Morris-Darke hand-clasp
finish, but a day of elite racing that delighted a substantial crowd ranged around the steeply banked spectating ravines of this rather ramshackle venue. There is something deeply 1970s
about Brands Hatch, a venerable track lodged in the green interior of Kent that hosted its last grand prix race a quarter of a century ago and still seems synonymous with an era of powerful
aftershave, the James Hunt-esque medallion and the weekend machismo of the pre-modern racing circuit. Patched up, decorated with purple hoardings and fish and chip shacks and infused with a
noticeably thirsty Irish contingent here to cheer on Mark Rohan in the H1 road race, the grounds had the air more of a well-stocked country fete than a high end Paralympic event. On the
track though it was an exhilarating afternoon, marked first of all by Rohan's boisterously received gold medal. Rohan was an inter-county Gaelic footballer before suffering serious
injuries in a motorbike accident in 2001. A poster boy in Ireland for both the summer Games, he has delivered gloriously here, having previously won gold in the time trial. After which the
day's racing was rounded off by the spectacle of hand-cycling's reigning glamour boy, the extraordinary Alex Zanardi, who appeared to large, rolling cheers to compete in the
men's H4 road race. Zanardi, of course, knows Brands Hatch rather well. A former Formula One driver, he lost both his legs in 2001 in a horrendous 220mph crash in a Champ Car race.
Zanardi was resuscitated seven times on his way to hospital and lost vast amounts of blood but was up walking on prosthetic legs just months after the accident, even returning to motor
racing in a specially adapted car. Now 45, and having taken up hand-cycling initially to keep fit, he won gold in the time trial on Wednesday, returning to a track that as a racing driver he
negotiated in F3000 and then in the World Touring Car Championship, finishing second and third but never previously first. But Zanardi won a second gold in 2hr 32sec. His presence here
leant a rather starry gloss as the shadows lengthened. Not to mention a reminder of the pure racing qualities of a sport that bears some similarities to motor racing with its emphasis on
engineering refinements, attritional tactical elements and – for one day at least – a moment of Formula One-style collusion at the finish line that brought bronze for Great Britain and a
gloriously memorable moment of camaraderie for those present in the stands.