MARK Colbourne, from Tredegar, won Great Britain's first medal of the XIV Paralympic Games at the London 2012 velodrome this afternoon, with silver in the C1-2-3 one-kilometre time-trial.

In an event factored to account for mixing classifications, Li Zhang Yu of China won gold with a C1 world record of one minute 13.009 seconds, converted to 1min 05.021secs.

Colbourne, competing in his first Paralympics aged 41 following a paragliding accident in 2009 which saw him sustain a broken back, finished in 1:16.882, converted to 1:08.471, as he claimed Britain's first podium place of the Games in front of a 6,000-capacity partisan crowd.

Tobias Graf of Germany set a C2 world record of 1:15.858, converted to 1:09.979, as he finished with bronze.

C3 world record holder Kenny, a six-time Paralympic champion, clocked 1:10.203 to place fourth, while Rik Waddon was ninth in 1:11.394 and Ireland's Enda Smyth, also a C3 rider, was 16th in 1:13.890.