RIO 2016: Dunham’s silver helps Great Britain to para-dressage gold

“It said “Thank you for all your hell” – I think she meant help!” said Hutton.

Dunham, who will be 68 later this month, secured her 10th career Paralympic medal by winning the individual freestyle silver medal behind compatriot Sophie Christiansen, who moved onto eight Paralympic career gold medals after making it a hat-trick of successes.

“I [am] happy playing against that style; I kept trying to change the speed of my play in order to force him to make mistakes”.

Three dressage golds were delivered by Sophie Christiansen, Natasha Baker and Lee Pearson on the ninth day of the competition on Friday.

There was more success for Great Britain at the Logoa Stadium where Jeanette Chippington marked her return to the Paralympics with another gold medal in the KL1 canoeing event.

Emma Wiggs, who represented GB in sitting volleyball at the last Games, won the KL2 final, while 49-year-old Anne Dickins completed a canoe team treble by winning the KL3 event.

Richard Whitehead, having already won gold in the 100m T42 final was unable to add another after finishing second in the 200m event.

Charlotte Henshaw won bronze in the 100m breastroke SB6, with four-time Paralympic champion Ellie Simmonds sixth.

Russian Federation are banned from the Rio Paralympics for state-sponsored doping – a scenario that part explains Britain’s extraordinary medal collection.

The 26-year old, who had to settle for silver in London four years ago, went one better this time as he raced to victory in a season’s best time of 54.49 seconds despite the rainy conditions, beating his main rival and old adversary, Ukraine’s Roman Pavlyk into second place by over a second.

“This is definitely my last race on a track individually and I didn’t come away with a medal. I’ll still do the marathon here on Sunday and I’ll talk to the team about the relay to see what’s best”.