THE QUESTION was deceptively simple to ask and devilishly difficult to answer. Clare Balding, the BBC sports presenter, wanted Rachel Morris, the newly crowned gold medallist in the handcycling time trial, to explain what Paralympic sport meant to her. “It’s given me back the life I wanted before my world was turned upside down,” said Morris. Like a lot of the GB Paralympic team this past week, that robust, poignant, utterly unsentimental response took some beating.

Where the British Olympians left off, the Paralympians have taken over, dominating in the velodrome, on the rowing lake and in the equestrian arena and competing hard everywhere else. By the end of the eighth day of the Games, only China had won more golds.

The exploits of athletes such as Morris, Helene Raynsford, Tom Aggar, Lee Pearson, Darren Kenny, David Roberts and David Stone, to select a few from a long roll of honour, has carried on the sense of national wellbeing.

Raynsford, who featured in a promotional campaign for The Sunday Times, described the final stages of her victory in the women’s arms-only single sculls, the first gold in Paralympic rowing. “I don’t remember anything about the second half of the race at all,” she said. “I just put my head down and pulled hard for every single stroke.”

As a result of the brain injury she suffered at the age of 21, Raynsford lost the use of her legs. She also suffered from the loss of short-term memory and basic control of her muscles. By dint of her own extraordinary spirit, she has retrained her memory and recovered her coordination, but her mind has no shut-off valve. “I do feel pain,” she explained, “but I don’t have the same mechanism as everyone else that says, ‘Stop’. I’ve always been a person who pushes myself but I don’t think I’ve ever pushed as much as I did in that final.”

As Raynsford’s ceremony ended, Aggar, her training partner, was coming off the water having completed a British double in the single sculls.

Of the 17 gold medals won by British cyclists, Morris’s victory in the time trial on Friday sparked the biggest smiles from her teammates. The 29-year-old from Surrey took up handcycling after a rare disease led to the loss of both her legs. “It’s pretty heartbreaking what she’s been through,” said Helen Mortimer, the GB Paralympic cycling performance manager. “The staff all had big smiles.”

Kenny, a triple gold medallist, broke the world record in the Kilo which was set by countryman Rick Waddon just before his ride. “The other teams were getting annoyed. A few of them came over and said that they were fed up hearing our anthem,” said Mortimer.

The frightening thought for Britain’s rivals is that the programme can be improved significantly in time for London 2012. “We only had 10 cyclists across the board in Beijing and there’s a lot more categories that we can compete in,” added Mortimer.