PARIS, AUG 30: The Paralympic track and field events began at the Stade de France on Friday while the wheelchair tennis players commenced battle at Roland Garros on day two of competition in Paris.
Paralympic powerhouse China leaped to the top of the medals table after the first day of competition on Thursday and quickly added a fifth gold on Friday when the athletics got under way.
Zhou Xia sprinted to the women's T35 100m title, for people with impaired coordination, in a time of 13.58sec.
The Chinese will look to add more golds in the pool and in track cycling later in the day.
At Roland Garros, the home of the French Open, despite grey morning skies and rain, a healthy-sized crowd, including a sizeable Israeli contingent, filed into the Suzanne Lenglen court to support singles player Adam Berdichevsky against Italy's Luca Arca.
After clinching a 6-2, 7-5 victory, Berdichevsky took an Israeli flag from his wife and three children and jogged around the court waving it.
Meanwhile, India's world number one Paralympic badminton player Suhas Yathiraj reached the semi-finals of the singles SL4 category by beating South Korea's Shin Kyung-hwan in two sets.
Yathiraj has an ankle impairment that impacts his mobility. —AFP
