That will wrap things up on day five at the Paralympics, a day where Australia had more success in a range of sports from athletics to swimming, triathlon to boccia and wheelchair rugby.

For Lauren Parker, it's been three long years waiting for her day to come since being pipped right at the finish by a single second by American Kendall Gretsch in Tokyo in women's para triathlon.

Today the Australian — who lives with chronic neuropathic pain in addition to her paraplegia from a training accident in 2017 — was never going to be denied.

She led from start to finish, from the swim leg in the River Seine to the hand-cycle leg on the Champs-Élysées to the concluding wheelchair run.

The emotions came out at the finish, and rightfully so. Later this Games, she will have the chance for a rare achievement to win medals in a second sport when she goes for the road race and time trial in road cycling.  

We will be back later this afternoon to bring you day six of competition in Paris, with plenty more Australians in action.

In the meantime, on behalf of all of us who have brought you the action today, I'm Andrew McGarry thanking you for joining us on the blog, and wishing you a very good morning!

Absolutely, Merrowyn, you're spot on.

There are 4,400 athletes taking part in the Paris Paralympics, and they all have stories and journeys that have got them here to compete on the highest stage in para sport.

Unfortunately we don't have the capacity to tell all their stories here on the blog, but from every one of us who produces our coverage of these Games, we send our best wishes and congratulations to every single athlete, whether they're from Australia or Austria, Zambia or Zimbabwe or any of the 168 nations competing in Paris.

Historically, few coaches in para sport have actually been people with disabilities.

But now people like para shot putter Julie Charlton are using their lived experience to make an impact on sport across Australia.

Upon changing schools during year three, Charlton met 'Mr Butcher', a British PE teacher specialising in inclusive education.

"He handed me my first ever shot-put and taught me how to use it, 15 minutes before my first ever competition," Charlton said.

"And that day, I won my first ever first placed ribbon."

As well as representing Australia in para-shot-put at the Commonwealth Games, Charlton has coached para-athletics since she was 16.

And for the athletes she mentors, there's a very clear goal.

"I want to be the person that Mr Butcher was for me," she said.

You can read more in Henry Hanson's great feature below:

We have a story updating the medal tally after day five of competition in Paris.

You can check it to find out all the Australian medallists on day five and where the team sits in the overall standings as we approach halfway in these Paralympics.

Here are some of the memorable images from day five in competition in Paris.

Italian transgender athlete Valentina Petrillo failed to reach the final of the women's T12 400 metres for vision-impaired runners after finishing third in her semifinal at the Paralympics.

The 50-year-old Petrillo ran a personal best 57.58 seconds in the second semifinal but finished behind Iran's Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani and Venezuela's Alejandra Paola Perez Lopez, who both advanced to Tuesday's final.

Petrillo earlier ran the fourth heat in the first round in 58.35 seconds, qualifying for the later semifinal.

"I tried until the end. I didn’t make it. I didn’t have enough strength in the final straight, but I tried. They were stronger. I had to run around 56 seconds to advance," Petrillo told reporters after the semifinal. 

"I should be happy even if I feel a bit down. I hope my son will be proud of me. This is important because he has got a daddy who is trans, and I am not a daddy that everyone would dream of.

"But I hope he will be proud of me anyway, that he will always be with me and will love me even if I am this way (crying). But I can’t help it if I am this way. I am sorry.

Petrillo was diagnosed with Stargardt disease when she was 14, a retinal disease that causes a progressive loss of vision.

Petrillo stopped running as a result, though her dream to compete was sparked by Italian athlete Pietro Mennea's 200-metre gold-medal performance in the 1980 Olympics.

The 50-year-old Petrillo began her transition in 2019 but has been competing in para sport since she was 41. She collected bronze medals in the 200 and 400 world championship races in 2023 with times of 26.31 and 58.24, respectively.

Asked about her experience so far at the Paralympics, Petrillo said:

"It’s amazing. It’s all beautiful, it’s all great. But how will it be outside (in the wider world)? Outside, it’s not beautiful as it is here, it’s not all purple, it’s not like this."

- including reporting from AP

Night five in Paris at the Stade de France was time for one of the high profile events of the Games, the 100m showdown for the T64 classification.

T64 class is for athletes whose movement is moderately affected in one leg, or those who have the absence of one or both legs below the knee.

Many athletes in this category use prosthetics, and have become known as "blade runners".

The field was stacked with top runners including British Paralympic star Johnnie Peacock (who previously won two gold medals in T44), American Hunter Woodhall, Italian world champion Maxcel Amo Manu and defending champion from Germany Felix Streng.

But it was Costa Rican runner Sherman Isidro Guity Guity who took the gold, finishing in a new Paralympic record of 10.65 seconds.

It was tight for second, with Manu securing silver in 10.76, a tick ahead of Streng, who finished with the bronze in 10.77.  

In the T63 class, American Ezra Frech won gold in the men's 100m in 12.06, ahead of Danish runner Daniel Wagner (12.08) and Brazil's Vinicius Goncalves Rodrigues (12.10). 

Frech will be going for gold again in the men's high jump T63 tomorrow morning Australian time.   

If you were here earlier, Chris De Silva brought you the news that Australia won its eighth gold medal of the Games with a brilliant win in the mixed 4x100m medley relay.

The mixed relays can be quite chaotic events, especially when you add the variable of swimmers with different genders AND classifications racing against each other in legs.

A reminder that the mixed relay is also known as the 34-point relay, as the numbers of a team's four swimmers' classfications can add up to no more than 34.

Australia front-loaded their race with Jesse Aungles and Tim Hodge before Emily Beecroft swam the third leg.

When Alexa Leary hit the water for the final 100m, Australia was fourth at the final change, trailing Netherlands, Spain and Italy, with the Dutch leading the Aussies by more than 6.2 seconds.

But Leary was not to be denied, swimming a final leg of 59.88 seconds, to stop the clock on four minutes 27.08 seconds, a new Paralympic record.

The Dutch (4:28.07) finished with silver, with Spain third in 4:29.39.

What a performance by all the Australians in the heats and final, including Keira Stephens and Callum Simpson. Two brilliant swims, and an awesome win!      

Brazil's Elizabeth Rodrigues Gomes came to Paris as the defending champion in women's discus for the T53 class. 

Rodrigues Gomes arrived at these Games to compete in two events, the women's discus T53 class and the women's shot put T54 class.

Through the vagaries of the Paralympic schedule, both events were on the same day in Paris.

First up was the shot put, where Rodrigues Gomes was up against athletes in her own class and also in the T54. Both classes are designed for seated athletes whose movement is greatly affected in the trunk and legs.

Rodrigues Gomes left her best till last, throwing 7.82 metres in the sixth round, breaking her own T53 world record in the process. This left her with the silver medal, as Mexico's Gloria Zarza Guadarrama (T54) threw 8.06m to win the gold.

Hours later, Rodrigues Gomes was back in the field at the Stade de France to compete in her main event, the discus.

She threw 13.42m in round one, trailing Japan's Keiko Onidani on 15.69m.

Rodrigues Gomes took the lead in round three with a throw of 16.75m before eventually clinching the gold with 17.35m.

That's one heck of a competition day! Parabéns Elizabeth! (Congratulations!).

It's been a big week or two for French para-triathlete Alexis Hanquinquant. He began these Paralympics as one of the French flag-bearers at the Opening Ceremony, then helped light the cauldron in the Jardin de Tuileries.

But the real reason he is here of course, is to defend his Paralympic title in the PTS4 class of the para triathlon.

He won the title in Tokyo, and now it was time to go for gold in front of a rather excited home crowd.

Nerves? He certainly didn't show them - Hanquinquant led at every change, through the swim and transition, the bike leg and transition.

At the end of the 4.35km run leg, the French champion proved his dominance by winning by nearly three clear minutes from American Carson Clough, with Spain's Nil Riudavets Victory taking the bronze medal, just ahead of another French athlete Pierre-Antoine Baele.

"Tokyo was amazing. It meant a lot for me to be able to pull it off and to get that gold there," Hanquinquant said afterwards.

"I felt there was a very different mindset today because I already had a gold.

"The goal today was to perform. I knew I was the favourite, but I just wanted to perform as well as possible.

"I'm happy it led to gold. There was a lot of emotions today."