Tag: Paralympics

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Second Gold for Sarah Storey

Sarah Storey has added a second gold to her tally in the C4-5 500m Individual Time Trial, having already taken top spot on the opening day of the Paralympics Games in the C5 Individual Pursuit. In a thrilling display the 34-year-old story recorded a time of 36.997 seconds holding America’s Jennifer Schuble off for silver and China’s Jianping Ruan in bronze. Her attention will now turn to next week’s Time Trial and Road Race in an effort to double her gold total for 2012.

 

An excellent day too for Sarah’s husband Barney Storey who helped pilot Neil Fachie to gold in the B Category 1km Time Trial, an event that saw a desperately disappointing ‘Did Not Finish’ for Anthony Kappes and his pilot Craig MacLean who suffered a double mechanical failure at their starts and were denied a third crack at the track.

 

In the Men’s Individual C4 Pursuit Jody Cundy channelled the frustration of his own ‘DNF’ from yesterday by taking the bronze; gold went to Romania’s Carol-Eduard Novak and silver to the Czech Republic’s Jiri Jezek. Whilst the Men’s C5 Pursuit saw a further medal for GB with Jon-Allan Butterworth taking silver behind Australian Michael Gallagher’s Gold.

 

With the velodrome action complete, attention next turns to the Wednesday’s Time Trials and Thursday’s Road Race.

 

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Paralympics Cycling Day Two

The first Team GB medal of day two was won by Aileen McGlynn and pilot Helen Scott taking silver in the in the blind/visually impaired tandem 1km Time Trial. As the penultimate pair they set themselves up for gold but were beaten into second place in the final run by World Champions Felicity Johnson and Stephanie Morton of Australia who set a Paralympic record of 1:08.919 in the process. New Zealand’s Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson took the silver with GB’s Lora Turnham and pilot Fiona Duncan finished in fourth place.

 

In the Men’s C4-5 1km Time Trial Jon-Allan Butterworth only just missed out on gold having set a blazing 1:05.985 a second better on the previous World Record (set by Butterworth back in March) but it proved not enough for relegation to silver with Spain’s Alfonso Cabello taking the gold with a time of 1:05.947. China’s Xinyang Liu took the bronze. GB’s Jody Cundy, set to be the final rider out of the blocks, was given a controversial ‘Did Not Finish’ after stumbling at the start and having a request for a restart denied.

 

Gold though was certainly on the cards for Mark Lee Colbourne – who won silver in the Men’s C1-2-3 1km Time Trial yesterday – when he today beat China’s Zhang Yu Li in the final of the Men’s C1 Individual 3km Pursuit. He did it in truly impressive style too, bagging a new World Record time of 3:53.881.

 

Racing for Bronze in the C3 Men’s Individual Pursuit Britain’s Darren Kenny was determined to go home with a medal and did just that with a World Record time of 3.35.257 to beat Australia’s David Nicholas. In the Silver/Gold final things got off to a literally shaky start for America’s Joseph Berenyl against GB’s Shaun McKeown with a restart due to a technical fault with the bike, but once things got underway the American dominated winning in 3:37.912.

 

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Gold for Storey

In an as-expected but none-the-less utterly thrilling Women’s C5 Individual Pursuit Sarah Storey racked up the first gold medal for team GB at the London Paralympics. The 34-year-old, hotly tipped for success at The Games and with an impressive string of titles and records already to her name, streaked passed her opponent – Poland’s Anna Harkowska – little over halfway through the 3km event; she had earlier qualified for the final in a time of 3:32.170 seconds – more than a second better than her 2009 best. New Zealand’s Fiona Southorn took the Silver, with GB’s Crystal Lane in fourth position.

 

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First Paralympics Medal for GB

ParalympicsGB have won their first medal of the 2012 Games with Mark Colbourne taking Silver in the Men’s C1-2-3 1km Time Trial in a time of 1:08.471. China’s Li Zhang Yu took the Gold in a thrilling velodrome final time of 1:05.021 (a C1 World Record), with Germany’s Thomas Graf setting a C2 World Record of 1:09.979 for Bronze. GB’s Darren Kenny was briefly in first place, after recording a time of 1:10.203 (0.792 seconds faster than the previous best), but finished proceedings in fourth. Despite a valiant effort Richard Waddon only managed ninth on 1:11.394

 

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Unstoppable Action at Paralympics

As if all the excitement and drama of the Paralympic Games isn’t going to be enough over the coming week-and-a-half, they will also be the backdrop for Director Dani Jariod’s latest documentary project ‘Unstoppables’, which follows the journey – begun more than two years ago – of Spanish Paralympic cyclists Juanjo Méndez and Raquel Acinas.

 

At 48, Méndez (who lost both an arm and leg to a motorcycle accident twenty years ago) is hotly-tipped for podium – quite possibly Gold – and says of his involvement in the film,  ‘I like being in this project because I think it can give more visibility to adaptive sports. Sometimes people don’t know what they are capable of.  They might worry that whatever happened to them that might seem to limit them. If I have reached this far, then anybody else can do it too.’ Unstoppables is produced by Black Train Films with part sponsorship by Cofidis – Cyclo will be following its progress, but for now further information is available from www.unstoppablesdocumentary.com

 

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Paralympic Track: Category Guide

Paralympic track cycling is now just two days away with all the action taking place between Thursday August 1 and Sunday September 2. The 2012 Track events are made up of: Men’s Individual Sprint (B), Individual Pursuit (B, C1-5), Men’s Individual 1km TT (B, C1-5), Women’s Individual Pursuit (B, C1-5), Women’s Individual 1km TT, Women’s Individual 500m TT (C1-5) and the Mixed Team Sprint (C1-5).

 

The classifications for Paralympians can initially seem complex, but they aim to group athletes by classes, ‘defined by the degree to which they are limited in their ability to perform activities within that sport’, a unique element of the Paralympics designed to level the playing field and ensure ‘fair competition’. With cycling (both track and road) these classes also define which type of cycle is used for competition: tricyle, handcycle, tandem. The six categories relevant to the track events for 2012 are B and C1-C5 which are defined as:

 

B – Athletes with a visual impairment who compete on a tandem with a sighted pilot on the front.

 

C1-C5 – Athletes with an impairment that affects their legs, arms and/or trunk but compete using a standard bicycle, with the lower the athlete’s class number, the greater the impact of their impairment on their ability to cycle.

 

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Storey Sprints Again

It has now been confirmed that Sarah Storey will ride for Great Britain in the team sprint at next month’s Para-Cycling Track World Championships, taking place in Los Angeles. The event is the final opportunity for countries to obtain points and earn qualification places for the London 2012 Paralympics; with international cycling rules now allowing mixed teams, Storey, who was born with a deformed left hand and switched to cycling after a successful career as a Paralympic swimmer (16 medals, including five gold) will line up with Jody Cundy and Darren Kenny.

 

The 34-year-old was part of the women’s Olympic team pursuit squad before being dropped last month, ending her hopes of becoming Britain’s first ever Paralympic and Olympic athlete. Writing on her website (www.teamstoreysport.com) at the time she said: ‘I have always said that London 2012 is about riding as many events as I am good enough for and so now it is important for me to concentrate on the other events I have at the Games…I always said the Team Pursuit was another opportunity to become the best athlete I could be and it would be a bonus if I was able to make the event work alongside the events in which I am Para-cycling World Champion…’

 

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Sad Storey

Despite helping power Britain to gold last week at the World Cup in Columbia, Sarah Storey has been told that her efforts were not enough to earn her a place in the women’s team pursuit Olympic squad; dashing her hopes of becoming Britain’s first ever Paralympic and Olympic athlete. 34-year-old Storey who was born without a left hand, won two gold medals at the 1992 Paralympics aged just 14, later switching her attention to cycling and debuting for GB at the Manchester leg of the World Cup back in February (and not incidentally helping break the British record in the process.)

 

Writing on her website (www.teamstoreysport.com) she says: ‘I have always said that London 2012 is about riding as many events as I am good enough for and so now it is important for me to concentrate on the other events I have at the Games…I always said the Team Pursuit was another opportunity to become the best athlete I could be and it would be a bonus if I was able to make the event work alongside the events in which I am Para-cycling World Champion. As with any team event the squad has to work to get the fastest three riders on the start line in the Olympic final and in the eyes of the selectors I am not able to contribute to this process any longer..’

 

Her records speak for themselves:

7 Paralympic Gold Medals (5 swimming, 2 cycling)
18 World Championship titles (6 swimming, 12 cycling)
21 European titles (18 swimming, 3 cycling)
6 World Cup titles (5 Paracycling, 1 able-bodied cycling)
More than 140 National titles (including 3 able-bodied National titles on the track)
71 World Records