PARIS PARALYMPICS 2024: CHAN HO-YUEN MISSES WHEELCHAIR BADMINTON EVEN AS HE WINS FINAL MEDAL

The 39-year-old said he was proud of himself after vowing to 'change the colour' of his medal after picking up bronze in Tokyo 3 years ago

An emotional Chan Ho-yuen said he had started to miss wheelchair badminton even as he was fighting for gold at the Paris Paralympics on Monday.

Before the Games began, the 39-year-old said that, with injuries finally catching up with him, these Games would be his last tournament.

But he had vowed to "change the colour" of his medal after picking up bronze in Tokyo three years ago.

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And while he had an eye on bowing out with gold around his neck, Chan was well beaten by top seed Daiki Kajiwara of Japan in the men's singles WH2 final, losing 21-12, 21-12 at La Chapelle Arena.

"I'm disappointed," Chan said. "He was really ready for the game and I think that he was 100 per cent convinced that he could grab the gold medal. He was very confident, so he deserved it.

"I can just say he deserved it. He gets every single win. He is the best now, in this moment."

Still, Chan said he was happy to end his last international tournament with a silver medal, having struggled for success since his podium finish in Japan.

"In Tokyo, I got a bronze and I told myself, 'you fight for three more years and try to change the colour of the medal'.

"Through the three years, I found that it was really hard for me to earn another medal, but now I earned one and changed the colour, so I thank myself a lot. It couldn't get better. This is my peak."

Retirement now beckons, and with no one in Hong Kong to follow him, Chan will not be moving into coaching, as he had previously declared.

The emotion of that finally hit him during his encounter with Kajiwara.

"I'll miss everything - the court, the matches, the opponents," he said. "I can't continue that much [because of] injuries, pain and everything, but I feel happy with a silver this year and a bronze at the last Paralympic Games. I'm proud of myself.

"I tried not to think about it, but on the court, when I still was playing, I started to miss it. I won't play in a match of this scale again."