Simmonds secures 400m freestyle gold

Ellie Simmonds claimed ParalympicsGB's second gold medal in the pool of London 2012 when she triumphed in her S6 400 metres freestyle shoot-out against Victoria Arlen and demolished the American's world record by more than five seconds.

Victory in five minutes 19.17 seconds followed the gold won by Jonathan Fox on the opening night and came immediately after Simmonds' Swansea team-mate Matthew Whorwood secured bronze in the previous race in the men's equivalent.

The crowd at the Aquatics Centre had grown increasingly more raucous as Whorwood made his way to the bronze in the previous race and on Simmonds' introduction the noise was intense.

The pair were neck and neck going into the final turn with the Briton 0.08 secs ahead and as she pulled away, the American had no answer as Simmonds touched first to send the crowd into a frenzy.

Simmonds told Channel 4: "I'm exhausted. I can't believe I did it. It was so tough. I saw her (Arlen) on the last 100 and I was like, 'I'm going to have to put my head down' and I thought, 'I'm going to do it for for everyone who's supported me'."

Amid all the celebrations surrounding Simmonds, Whorwood's achievement should not be forgotten. He touched in 5:11.59 with Ireland's Darragh McDonald winning in 4:55.56.

Claire Cashmore won silver in the SB8 100m breaststroke, upgrading her bronze from Beijing.

The Redditch-born swimmer touched in 1:20.39 although it took a world record of 1:17.17 by Olesya Vladykina to beat her.

There was, though, disappointment for Britain's Sascha Kindred who was edged out of the medals in the SB7 100m breaststroke, finishing fourth, one ahead of team-mate Thomas Young.

In other finals, James Crisp and Sam Hynd were sixth and seventh respectively in the SB8 100m breaststroke, Anthony Stephens was fourth in the S5 200m freestyle and Rhiannon Henry was seventh in the S13 50m freestyle.