Australia leads the medal tally after day one with six gold medals, including four in the pool and two in track cycling.

Action in the pool and velodrome continues today while the Steelers will be out to kickstart their Paralympic campaign at 6.30pm against France.

Lakeisha Patterson's last-gasp gold medal on the opening night of the Paralympics has left the Australian swimmer "more fried than a chook from KFC".

Patterson held off a fierce challenge from Zsofia Konkoly - the Hungarian briefly took the lead on the last lap - to win the S9 400m freestyle final by just .08 of a second.

Will Martin broke the Paralympic record in the men's S9 400m freestyle final and Rowan Crothers took out the S10 50m freestyle.

Then Ben Popham won the last event of the night, bursting into tears when his blistering finish gave him the S8 100m freestyle gold.

"Australia is having another mining boom - it's a bit of a gold rush and I'm loving it," he told Channel Seven.

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Martin and Patterson won the first two swimming gold medals of the Games on Wednesday night at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

They emulated compatriots Paige Greco and Emily Petricola, who won the first two gold medals of the Tokyo Paralympics earlier at the Izu Velodrome.

He clocked 23.21 seconds to take out the "splash and dash", edging out Maksym Krypak of Ukraine by .12 of a second.

Martin stunned his rivals in the 400m freestyle, going out fast in the finals taking more than seven seconds off his heat time.

For a full wrap on Australia's day 1 of competition, click here.

Not everything went to plan for Australia on day one - the Steelers' shock 54-53 loss to Denmark put an early dent in their quest for a third-straight wheelchair rugby gold medal.

Japan also dominated their women's wheelchair basketball match against the Gliders, beating the Australian team 73-47.

- with Australian Associated Press