Aaron McKibbin held his nerve to ensure Great Britain’s Paralympic campaign ended on a high with a bronze medal in the Men’s Team Class 6-8.

Facing China for the final place on the podium in Rio, the match went to a deciding rubber between McKibbin and Sun Churen.

Twice KcKibbin saw his opponent come from a set down to level the score and the final game was close all the way before the Londoner took his second match point to seal the medal.

Earlier, McKibbin and Wilson had won the doubles in five, having led 2-0, while Wilson was beaten in four by Zhao Shuai in the first singles.

So it is a repeat of the result from London 2012 for McKibbin, Wilson and team-mate Will Bayley, who adds bronze to his individual gold medal.

McKibbin said:

To be honest, I think the fifth game was down to nerves. I was so nervous but I could see in his face that he was praying for me to miss and at the end I thought I just need to go for this and play to win and if I lose playing to win then fair enough.

He was playing for me to miss and I was going to make sure that I played to win because I believe that if I play to win I have a better chance. Thankfully it paid off and it is just phenomenal.

We have a special belief about us and we believed we were going to do this today. It was a hard loss yesterday and we came back and we believed genuinely that we could do this if we performed to our level and we showed it out there.

I’m over the moon for the boys – we won a bronze medal in London but I personally think this is a greater achievement. We have had such hard opponents all the way through and the competition is getting stronger and stronger. I’m just so thrilled for the boys that we’ve done it.”


Ross Wilson added:

I was feeling the nerves the whole way through the last match but we believed in Aaron. We do that as a team – we believe in each other and I think that is what makes us get these results and I can’t believe we’ve done it.”


Will Bayley said:

It was agony watching and I just feel drained now. They were superb – we’ve come through a lot in this tournament and had to beat some good teams. Overall the tournament has been fantastic for us and I’m proud of the boys – they held their nerve superbly.”


Result
Men’s Team Class 6-8
Bronze medal play-off
China Great Britain
Ross Wilson & Aaron McKibbin bt Zhao Shuai & Ye Chaoqun 3-2 (11-7, 11-9, 7-11, 3-11, 11-9)
Shuai bt Wilson 3-1 (11-7, 11-9, 6-11, 11-6)
McKibbin bt Sun Churen 3-2 (11-6, 9-11, 11-3, 9-11, 12-10)

Download As PDF

Latest news