Tai, Clegg and Ellard all win gold within 40 minutes

Alice Tai won her first individual Paralympic title as Great Britain's swimmers claimed three gold medals within 40 sensational minutes on Saturday.

Tai won the S8 100m backstroke shortly after Stephen Clegg and William Ellard set world records to triumph in their events.

The 25-year-old missed the Tokyo Games in 2021 because of injury and had her right leg amputated below the knee in 2022 because of increasing pain and discomfort.

Tai, who said the amputation had been "a great thing" for her, won in a Paralympic record time of one minute 09.06 seconds.

Clegg, 28, won his first Paralympic gold medal as he stormed to victory in the S12 100m backstroke final in 59.02 seconds.

Ellard, 18, won the S14 200m freestyle in one minute 51.30 seconds, more than a second faster than the previous record, which he shared with fellow Briton Reece Dunn.

It is Ellard's second medal of the Games after he took silver in the S14 100m butterfly on Thursday.

And Poppy Maskill secured silver and Louise Fiddes bronze in the S14 women's 200m freestyle.

That's also a second medal for Maskill, who won over 100m on Thursday.

The youngest member of the ParalympicsGB squad in Paris, 13-year-old Iona Winnifrith, goes in the SM7 individual medley at about 19:10 BST.

Tai's gold never seemed in doubt as she utterly dominated her race, winning by nearly six seconds from silver medallist Viktoriia Ishchiulova, a Russian competing as a Neutral Paralympic Athlete, with Germany's Mira Jeanne Maack taking bronze.

It comes after a testing few years, with an elbow problem keeping her out of the previous Games in Tokyo shortly before she decided to have an amputation on her right leg to improve her quality of life.

"The last three years has been kind of crazy," she said. "I've had six surgeries on three different limbs over the course of two and a half years, and a lot has happened in my personal life. Just being here, I feel like I've made myself proud and made everyone supporting me proud.

"It's not been the easiest few years so to come here and swim a time I'm really, really happy with means so much, and for that to get me my first individual gold at the Paralympics is super, super special."

Her only previous Paralympic gold was in the 4x100m medley relay 34 points at Rio 2016, where she got a bronze in the S10 100m backstroke.

Tai, who was born with club feet and had multiple surgeries as a youngster, is competing in five events in Paris with the SM8 200m individual medley next on the agenda on Sunday.