2008 Paralympics - Review of the past few days

Christchurch 15-year-old Sophie Pascoe won her third gold and her fourth medal overall as she finished first equal in a dramatic finish in the 100m backstroke at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics while Waitakere's Daniel Sharp grabbed a silver to secure the second medal in total for the Kiwi men.

Pascoe came home in a time of 1 minute 10.57 seconds beating her world record time of 1 minute 11.26 seconds she set in the heats in the morning. Pascoe was equal with South Africa's Shireen Sapiro coming down the home straight as they touched the wall together way ahead of the rest of the field.

"I just gave it my all and I've got nothing left. We both went out on the day wanting gold and we both got it. I wanted it bad," said Pascoe who had never finished in a dead heat before said she could see her closest rival. "Unfortunately on the TV you can see it (just how close we were) when you're in the backstroke. I wanted to control myself and I knew she was going to come back. That's where I've got to really use my leg power cause I've only got one leg." She said.

She will now get some time with her parents in Beijing who have put themselves on a self imposed ban away from close contact with their daughter to let her concentrate on her racing.

Pascoe had already won gold medals in the 100m breaststroke and 200m IM medley and a silver in the 100m butterfly.

In the men's 100m breaststroke Sharp won a silver medal in a close race for second place. Sharp finished in 1 minute 08.73 seconds, behind the Ukrainian, Oleksii Fedyna in 1 minute 04.63 seconds but ahead of the third placed Belarus swimmer, Uladzimir Izotau who came home in 1 minute 08.90 seconds.

"I'm very happy with the silver medal. Obviously I went out there to win the gold, but knew it was going to be very tough. The Ukrainian had done a time much faster than my PB. I went out there after him, but couldn't catch him, so I'm happy with silver," said Sharp.

Other Kiwi results featured Tim Prendergast finishing fifth in the 1500m, but not looking fully recovered from his collapse two days earlier. In the women's javelin Southland's Jess Hamill finished tenth even after gaining a distance which would have had her in the top half-dozen, however classification points pushed her down the order. Annemarie Donaldson finished in eighth place in the women's handcycling road race.

Day 8 - Sunday 14th September

He may not have the swimming style of Olympians, but Cameron Leslie makes up for it in sheer determination. The 18-year-old from Whangarei who is studying communications in Auckland won New Zealand's 12th medal of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics as he cruised away with gold in the 150m IM final.

Leslie attributed his gold medal to all the hard work he puts in at training but says he may take next year off competitive swimming and play some wheelchair rugby instead.

"I do all the training so it just comes naturally. Freestyle is definitely my strength and I like bringing it home strong and fighting through all the pain. It was awesome how the New Zealand team came out to support me," said Leslie who has a quadruple limb deficiency.

Leslie shot out to a quick lead in the backstroke lap but was slowly caught up by Spain's Vicente Javier Torres on the breastroke as the gap closed going into the final length, freestyle, where he surged ahead of Torres to finish in a world record time of 2 minutes 33.57 seconds. The Spaniard was second in 2 minutes 40.11 seconds.

In the crowd were fellow Kiwi medalists from the pool Sophie Pascoe and Daniel Sharp as well as a raft of other New Zealand athletes and officials. Pascoe shouted herself hoarse and showed plenty of delight in her team mates win. Six medals of New Zealand's total of 12 have been won in the pool so far.

In the women's T44 100m on Sunday Wellington's Kate Horan finished in fifth in a time of 14.01. The winner was April Holmes from the United States in 13.72.

At the cycling road race the tandem pair of Jayne Parsons and pilot Annaliisa Farrell were eighth in 2 hours 1 minute 07 seconds.

Meanwhile the Wheelblacks restored some pride as they defeated Germany 40-31 after taking a while to get into the game. The Wheelblacks were the defending champions in wheelchair rugby but are out of medal contention with fifth place their best hope.

Captain Dan Buckingham was the top scorer with 11 goals and David Klinkhamer scoring 10 times.

"I said to the boys before the game I'd like to go to bed happy tonight. The last two nights have been gut-wrenching and it's not easy to go to sleep. We didn't achieve the perfect game (tonight) but we had fun. Fifth is as good as we can get and there's no way we're going home with less," said Buckingham.

Day 9 - Monday 14th September

Day nine of the 2008 Beijing Paralympics was tough going for New Zealand competitors with a number of athletes either missing their finals or finishing out of the medals.

A gold medalist the previous day in the 150m IM Northland's Cameron Leslie, 18 couldn't sustain his winning ways as he finished fifth in his heat of the 50m freestyle in a time of 38.67 seconds missing out on a place in the final.

Waitakere's Daniel Sharp was the third fastest in his heat of the category S13 50m freestyle. Sharp, 20 touched the wall in a time of 25.30 seconds to make the final as the eighth qualifier.

Sharp, who on Saturday won silver in the 100m breastroke, finished with 8th place in the 50m freestyle final later in the day. In a race where both gold and silver places went faster than the existing world record, Sharp touched in 25.50 seconds 1.75 seconds behind the winner Oleksii Fedynaa of Ukraine.

At the athletics Auckland's Matt Slade missed qualifying for the 200m final after finishing fifth in a time of 25.53m in his heat. Southland's Jess Hamill completed the women's shot put with a best throw of 6.77m which would have placed her fourth, however classification took her down to 11th position.

New Zealand Paralympic team captain, Tim Prendergast finished his campaign in Beijing at the 2008 Paralympics without a medal after coming incredibly close in the T13 800 metres.

Although he was sixth Prendergast was in a group of five runners who all crossed within under a second of each other to fill places second through sixth.

Prendergast, 28 from Wellington but now residing in London completed the glamour event in a time of 1 minute 56.28 seconds with the winner, Abdelilah Mame of Morocco out in front of the bunch in a time of 1 minute 54.78 seconds.

For Prendergast a medal was within his grasp as he headed into the home straight in second before the faster sprints of his rivals pulled him into a bunch of five.

"It was a tough race. I went out quite quick and was feeling good at the bell, confident I could drag in the US guy but wasn't to be and the other guys just pulled right over me in the home straight which is a shame," said Prendergast who had collapsed during the 5000m a few days earlier with heat exhaustion and then crawled across the line and had been struggling to fully recover from his efforts.

He admitted he would have like more time to get his body back into a better shape but didn't want to dwell on the 5000m and said it was a shame to come away with nothing despite giving it his all in every race.

"Still at the end of the day it would have been nice to have some metal in my luggage back home. I gave it all I could and perhaps that five km took out more of me than I thought. I'm not going to making excuses," he said.

Meanwhile the Wheelblacks won their latest clash in wheelchair rugby by defeating hosts China 47-34. The victory means the Kiwis face Germany for fifth place after the Germans had downed Japan 39-38.