The 33-year-old Londoner (pictured top, centre) came into the race as favourite to improve on the bronze medal he had won in Beijing four years ago but faced major competition for gold from his great Australian rival, Kurt Fearnley.

However, Weir put in a superb tactical display as he sat in the pack for the majority of the race before bursting to the front with 200m to go and holding on for a sensational victory in a time of 11min 07.65sec, which was modest but immaterial in the circumstances.

Fearnley took silver in 11:07.90 while France's Julien Casoli took the bronze in 11:08.07 but it was the Briton who stole the show, drawing a huge smile for the Duchess of Cambridge who was in attendance and on up her feet cheering.

She was stood next to London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe, who had already seen one outstanding British 5,000m victory in this Stadium last month when Mo Farah had won the Olympic title to add to the 10,000m crown he had claimed earlier.


Weir will be hoping to go at least one better than Farah's double with the 800m and 1500m still to come in the Stadium - titles he won in Beijing - before the marathon next Sunday (September 9) on the final day of these Games.

But, for the moment, he wanted to enjoy this moment.

"It was a great finish," said a stunned Weir, before admitting he had enjoyed claiming a one-two with Fearnley.

"We're the two oldest [competitors] in the field," he smiled.

"And for him to get silver... it's great to see the old dogs still winning!"

The victory marked another glittering evening for the host nation after Britain took two sprint silver medals through Libby Clegg in the women's 100m T12 and Graeme Ballard in the men's 100m T36.


Clegg, with her guide Mikail Huggins (pictured above, on left), lost out to China's Guohua Zhou but finished ahead of third-placed Ukrainian Oxana Boturchuk while Ballard finished just behind Russia's Evgenii Shvetcov and ahead of bronze medallist Roman Pavlyk of Ukraine.

The evening medals at the Olympic Stadium came after morning glory in athletics where Aled Davies threw his way to Paralympic gold in the discus F42 with Stef Reid leaping to long jump F42/44 silver.

Davies (pictured below), a 21-year-old from Cardiff, has now landed two medals on his Paralympic Games debut following a bronze he won in the shot put F42/44 on Friday (August 31), but he went two better today with a huge throw of 46.14 metres securing him the prized top step on the podium, where he received his gold medal from the Duchess of Cambridge, reducing him to tears.

"It was a tough competition, but I dug deep," he said.

"It's surreal, it hasn't sunk in yet.

"Four years of hard work have gone into this."

Reid took silver behind Australia's Kelly Cartwright in a thrilling battle that saw the lead change hands several times.

"I'm gutted but I'm thrilled at the same time," she said.

"The truth is there's something really special about just giving your best in a situation.

"That is what I did."


But there was disappointment for Shelly Woods who finished eighth in the women's 5,000m T54 final.

Woods, the bronze medallist in Beijing four years ago, looked well placed throughout the final and mounted a couple of attacks in an effort to take the sting out of the opposition.

But she lost touch as the leaders sprinted away in the last 200m, with Switzerland's Edith Wolf racing home to take gold.

"I'm understandably disappointed, it's not what I wanted, but I stuck to my plan and I wouldn't have raced it any differently," said Woods.

"The other girls were just stronger.

"I tried to break them, I attacked to try to take it out of them but it didn't work.

"They were brave tactics.

"It's such a high-quality field and we could race that again and it would be a different outcome.

"I've got a rest day tomorrow and I just have to pick myself up for my remaining events."

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