Grimaldi wins gold in Rio

New Zealand is on the medal table on the first day of the Rio Paralympics with a gold and a bronze.

Otago's Anna Grimaldi won New Zealand's first gold of the Games with victory in the women's Long Jump T47. That was followed up an hour later by Rebecca Dubber, who finished third in the 100m Backstroke S7 final.

Grimaldi put in a mammoth final jump of 5.62m, 3cm ahead of Yunidis Castillo (Cuba) and Carlee Beattie (Australia).

Grimaldi's previous best jump was 5.41m, putting today's jump a massive 21cm ahead of her personal best.

She went into this event ranked number two in the world.

The last medal New Zealand won in Paralympic field events for females was a bronze in the Long Jump B3 from Leslie Mancktelow, 1988.

It's been a long dry spell for New Zealand in Para-Athletics at a Paralympic Games, with the last medals won in 2004 - two golds and a bronze, Peter Martin at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games.

Liam Malone looks in good form to add another medal on the track after producing the second fastest time in the men's 100m T44 heats, winning his heat to advance through to the semifinals in a time of 10.90 seconds.

Dubber gave New Zealand's campaign in the pool a strong start with bronze in the final event of the day. Dubber surged late to finish third behind Chinese duo Ke Liting and Zhang Ying. New Zealand teammate Nikita Howarth finished fifth.

Also in the pool Cameron Leslie finished eighth in the Men's 200m Freestyle S5 final.

Earlier, Kiwi cyclist Kate Horan was edged out of the medals after finishing second in the bronze medal ride in the 3km pursuit C4 event. Horan led Megan Fisher at the 2km mark but the American fought back to finish in a time of 4:04.081. Horan was less than a second back in 4:04.437