Rio Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony
Venue: Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro Date: 18 September Time: 23:30 BST
Coverage: Live text commentary, video clips, medal table, plus commentary on BBC Radio 5 live. Television coverage on Channel 4.
The Rio Paralympics will close on Sunday with a tribute to Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad, who died in Saturday’s C4-5 road race.
Golbarnezhad, 48, a married father-of-one, crashed on the mountainous Grumari loop and died later in hospital.
A “moment of silence” in his memory will be held during the closing ceremony, which begins at 23:30 BST.
Rio gold-medallist Kadeena Cox, who won titles in athletics and cycling, will carry the flag for ParalympicsGB.
The 25-year-old is the first Briton to win titles in two sports at the same Games since Seoul 1988.
As flagbearer, Cox will represent one of the most successful British Paralympic teams in history, having ensured their best medal haul since 1988.
Dame Sarah Storey won her third and GB’s 60th gold medal of the Games on Saturday, with the tally reaching 64 golds by the end of the day.
“Already the team has achieved the most gold medals by a British team since 1988 with just a few events at the Games left to go,” the British Paralympic Association said.
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Britain won 147 medals – 27 more medals overall than at London 2012 and 31 more gold medals.
Tributes for cyclist Golbarnezhad
Cyclist Golbarnezhad’s death is the first in competition at a summer Olympics or Paralympics since Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen in the 100km team time trial at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
The Iranian Paralympic Committee said Golbarnezhad was an “exemplary Paralympic sportsman who, with love and energy, tried his best to promote the name of Iran and to make all of us proud and at the end he gave his life for this”.
As well as the closing ceremony tribute, flags were lowered to half-mast as Iran won gold on Sunday afternoon in the sitting volleyball gold-medal match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the final events of the Games.
Flags have also been lowered around the Paralympic village.
An investigation into the crash has begun, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said.
‘Celebrate Rio’
Organisers say Sunday’s closing ceremony will be “a new opportunity to celebrate Rio de Janeiro and Brazil”, the Paralympic flame will be extinguished and the flag handed over to Tokyo, hosts for the next Games in 2020.
The Games were opened 11 days ago with a spectacular ceremony of colour and music amid controversy over funding for the event, ticket sales and Russia’s ban from competing.
Brazil President Michel Temer and Rio 2016 organising committee president Carlos Nuzman were both booed during their speeches following political unrest in the country, including over the cost of hosting the Olympics and Paralympics.
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Just 19 days before Games began, the whole event was thrown into doubt when the IPC said Rio’s organising committee had not raised enough money to fund the Paralympics, with budget cuts affecting venues, the workforce and transport.
At the time, only 12% of available tickets had been sold and organisers were three weeks late in paying 8m euros (£7m) in travel grants to help athletes get to Rio.
But organisers said that as of Saturday morning, the penultimate day of the Games, more than 2.1 million tickets of 3.3 million put on sale in May 2015 had been sold – fewer than the 2.7 million sold at London.
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