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| Wednesday, 22 September 2004 |
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China leads medals tally with 19 golds China extended their lead to 19 gold medals in the latest medals standings of the Paralympic Games continued in Athens, Greece yesterday. At the time of going to press, they have bagged a total of 43 medals, which included 19 gold, 16 silver and 8 bronze medals. In the second place is Great Britain with 11 gold medals, six silver and eight bronze. Australia in placed third with eight gold medals, followed by Germany, Spain and Ukraine. Reports from the Greek capital said the track and field competition has turned out to be a keen tussle. In the Men's 1,500m T54, Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa led for most of the race before the 37 year old Mexican veteran, Saul Mendoza sprinted past with 200m remaining. So sudden was his acceleration that he immediately gained a three metre advantage which the field could not close. His winning time was 3:04.88. Van Dyk's pacemaking was rewarded with a silver medal in a time of 3:05.29. In the sprint up the final straight Marcel Hug (SUI) whose personal best time, prior to the Paralympics, was the slowest of the ten finalists, came through the field to steal the bronze medal. So strong was the field that reigning IAAF world champion, Joel Jeannot of France (FRA) could manage only the 9th place. Hai Tao Sun of China claimed the F13 men's shot put with a new world record of 16.62m. Four of his throws were 16.17m or better and would have won the competition. Alexander Yasinovyi of Ukraine threw 15.87m on his final throw to steal the silver medal from the Australian Russell Short whose 15.54m gave him the bronze medal. Stephen Miller of Great Britain threw a world record of 33.53m in the men's F32/51 club throw on his second attempt which held up for the gold medal in that event. At the same time, at the other end of the stadium Indian Devendra, who is classified F46 threw a massive world record in the F44/46 javelin reaching 62.15m. GAO (CHN) threw 55.57m for a F44 world record and the silver medal. In wheelchair tennis, It only took world number one and Olympic reigning champion, Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands, 30 minutes to advance to the Women's Singles Quarterfinals by winning over Pi Wen Lu of Taiwan 6-0, 6-0. She will now face seed number eight, Sakhorn Khanthasit of Tahiland, who also prevailed easily, (6-0, 6-1) over wild card Fuli Dong of China. Fourth seed Florence Gravellier of France also recorded a fast victory (6-1, 6-0), over Polish wild card Agnieszka Bartczak. Her next opponent is unseeded Sandra Kalt (SUI), who outplayed Korean Young Suk Hong (6-3, 6-2). Twenty four-year-old Ukranian powerlifter Lidiya Solovyona (dwarfism), set a new world record twice in the women's 40kg category, by lifting 103kg and 105kg respectively, breaking twice Bian Jianxin's (China) world record (102,5kg.) set at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games. (D.W.) |
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