Nouvelles sportives

Australian and Canadian win demonstration events in Daegu

05 09 2011

(Seulement disponible en anglais)
By Mike Rowbottom in Daegu

September 3 - The noise inside the Daegu Stadium reached unparalled proportions here tonight as the home nation embraced their first and second medallists of the World Championships, and both in the same race – the men's 400m T53 wheelchair event.

Richard Colman of Australia took the gold in 49.36sec in the demonstration event, but behind him Byung-hoon Yoo and Dong-ho Jung ensured a South Korean presence on the rest of the podium as they finished in 50.69 and 50.76 respectively, edging Josh George out of the medals.

"It is always a great feeling to compete in front of a full stadium with such strong support," Colman said.

"I really enjoyed it.

"I have been in the Athletes' Village for three weeks.

"This is a great way towards the Palympics and it is good to know that my times are still improving."

The women's 800m T54 wheelchair race was won by Canada's Diane Roy, bronze medallist at the Beijing Paralympics, in 1min 50.91sec.

"This is awesome," said Roy.

"I love to compete at conventional World Championships.

"Tonight is probably the night with a record number of spectators and having them all cheer for us is just wonderful.

"I think an event like this is very important for the integration of our sport.

"It was important for me to get a good place at the start, and I managed to start my final sprint on the last 200m.

"The 800m is quite short for me because I usually do races up to marathons."

Wakako Tsuchida of Japan took silver in 1:51.11, while bronze went to Britain's Shelly Woods, who clocked 1:51.27.

Contact the writer of this story at mike.rowbottom@insideworldparasport.biz