On his debut appearance in a British vest, Luke Sinnott (Roger Keller) produced the leap of his life when it mattered most, finding a mark of 6.15m to finish in fourth place in the T42 long jump on the day five of the World Para Athletics Championships.

It was initially a frustrating competition for Sinnott who fouled four of his first five jumps, before a 5.41m effort in round four earned him his first distance on the scoreboards. Invigorated by this jump, the Bournemouth man found his form in the final round with his furthest ever distance.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself on that jump (to record 6.15) because as soon as my first jump was fractionally over – and I think it was a huge jump too – that was a bit of a knock to me to be that close and once you start chasing that mark it can be really, really difficult mentally for a long-jumper. So after a few bad jumps I realised that I needed to rethink my strategy and the turning point for me was getting the crowd involved.”

“Whether wrongly or rightly I’d been feeding off the crowd but not interacting with them. Until I got them interacting that was when things got better for me.”

Asked about the 5.41m jump in round four settling his nerves, the Invictus Games champion added:

“I just put in a safety jump. I thought I’d better get something on the board. I think there is such a big tournament like this you want to get the big jumps and I’m focusing on just trying to hit that board but in the back of the head you want to get something nice on the board. Again, a dangerous place to be when you jump. So you need to go back to the basics.”

After her spectacular gold medal and world record in the 200m on Saturday evening, Sammi Kinghorn (Ian Mirfin) returned to the track once more in the heats of the T53 400m, qualifying with ease for second position in her heat.

The Scotland-based athlete recorded a time of 56.32 to make the final as the fourth fastest qualifier, pushing hard over the first 200m, before easing down over the second half to conserve energy ahead of another world final on Wednesday evening.

There was further good news for the British team as Nathan Maguire (Ste Hoskins) and Richard Chiassaro (Jenni Banks) advanced to the T54 200m final later this evening.

For the 19 year-old Maguire, it was a breakthrough performance as he reached his first ever world final. He initially finished in fourth position and it appeared he would face an agonizing wait to see if he was one of two fastest other qualifiers. However, one of the favourites, Saichon Konjen of Thailand was disqualified and that moved the Stockport athlete into the automatic qualifying positions after his 26.37 clocking.

“I can’t wait to go in that final; I’m so happy,” said Maguire, “I felt really good after my start but I’m aware a lot of the guys have great starts so it is going to be tough later on, but I’ll try my best.”

Chiassaro recovered from a crash in the 800m last night to advance into the final alongside his compatriot, recording a time of 25.44.

British Athletics medallists at the World Para Athletics Championships London 2017:

Gold (11):

Hollie Arnold – F46 Javelin

Olivia Breen – T38 Long Jump

Hannah Cockroft – T34 100m, 800m

Aled Davies – F42 Discus

Sophie Hahn – T38 200m

Sophie Kamlish – T44 100m

Sammi Kinghorn – T53 100m

Jonnie Peacock – T44 100m

Stef Reid – T44 Long Jump

Richard Whitehead – T42 200m

Silver (2):

Kare Adenegan – T34 100m

Toby Gold – T33 100m

Bronze (7):

Kare Adenegan – T34 800m

Kadeena Cox – T38 200m

David Henson – T42 200m

Maria Lyle – T35 200m

Gemma Prescott – F32 Club Throw

Andrew Small – T33 100m

Richard Whitehead – T42 100m

The timetable for the World Para Athletics Championships can be found here