China pulled away from its Paralympic rivals yesterday as the host nation’s medal tally soared over 100, while South African swimming sensation Natalie du Toit grabbed her fourth gold.
Away from the sporting arena, International Paralympic chiefs were forced to defend the controversial banning of an Irish athlete and speak out against the doping problems in powerlifting.
China’s total of 109 medals means it has a bigger haul in six days of competition than it won during the whole of last month’s Olympics, when it collected exactly 100.
Its 37 golds include 17 in athletics and eight in table tennis, elevating China well clear of second-placed Britain, on 33 golds and an overall total of 69.
“The Chinese athletes are doing very well and there is high morale among all the athletes from China and now they are No. 1 in the medal tally,” said Wang Wei, the vice-president of organising committee BOCOG.
But he added that promoting the Paralympic movement and the cause of people with disabilities in China was more important than medals.
In the pool, du Toit added the women’s 400m freestyle title to the golds she has already won in the 100m butterfly, 100m freestyle and 200m individual medley events.
Du Toit destroyed the field, finishing almost 16 seconds ahead of Canada’s Stephanie Dixon in a time of 4 mins 23.81secs.
The 24-year-old, who knocked 0.15secs off her own world record, said: “It was a good race. I gave everything.”
Du Toit said the 50m freestyle on Sunday would likely be her toughest task.
“It’s going to be a head-down-and-go race. Anything can happen but I’m looking forward to it, it’s a great challenge.”
At the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium earlier yeserday, the women’s 5000m wheelchair race was repeated after the first run on Monday saw a huge pile-up less than 100m from the finishing line.
Medals were handed out for the first race but subsequently withdrawn. In the re-run, the same three athletes finished in the medal positions but in a different order.
Meanwhile, International Paralympic Committee medical and scientific director Peter Van de Vliet insisted that classification rules were transparent and aimed at fair competition.
The comments followed a ruling that Irish soccer player Derek Malone’s cerebral palsy condition was not severe enough.
“As far as I know all the assessments that have been done so far during these Games have been done in compliance with the actual rules,” Van de Vliet said.
Kylian Mbappe struck from the penalty spot as Real Madrid beat a dogged CA Osasuna 1-0 on Tuesday to make a winning start in Spanish La Liga under new coach Xabi Alonso. The France striker, last season’s European Golden Shoe winner, scored early in the second half, after he was fouled in the area by Osasuna defender Juan Cruz. It was enough to seal the points in Alonso’s first game in charge at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Madrid now unbeaten in their opening fixture of a league campaign since 2008. “You can see that Kylian wants to do even more
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
‘CATASTROPHE’: Despite losing several key forwards in the summer transfer window, Bayern were up 3-0 in the first half before Harry Kane scored a hat-trick in the second Harry Kane hit a hat-trick, Michael Olise a double and newcomer Luis Diaz also scored as Bayern Munich made a “statement” against RB Leipzig 6-0 at home in the Bundesliga season opener on Friday. Bayern’s big-money arrivals, all brought in from the Premier League across the past three seasons, were dominant as the Bavarians begun their title defense in style. Olise scored twice in the first half, either side of a Diaz strike. Not to be outdone, Kane scored three goals in the second half — with two assists coming from Diaz, to bring Bayern’s total to 6-0. Kane told the Bundesliga
Kevin de Bruyne is to lead SSC Napoli’s Serie A title defense today when he makes his full debut at promoted US Sassuolo, but the champions head into the new season rocked by a long-term injury to star striker Romelu Lukaku. De Bruyne was, alongside aging icon Luka Modric, the big new name to arrive in Italy this summer and fans were hoping his linkup with Belgium teammate Lukaku would push Napoli to success both at home and in their return to the UEFA Champions League. The 34-year-old has suffered from hamstring injuries which caused him to miss significant chunks of the
RSS