Australia’s Jacqueline Freney on Monday won her fifth gold of the Games in the stand-out performance of the day, after a row involving sprinter Oscar Pistorius overshadowed the sporting action.
World-record holder Freney, who has cerebral palsy, took gold in a new Paralympic best of 1 minute, 9.39 seconds in the S7 100m freestyle to add to her titles in the S7 50m butterfly, S7 100m backstroke and SM7 200m individual medley.
Then with teammates Ellie Cole, Madison Elliott and Katherine Downey, the 20-year-old added the women’s 4x100m freestyle 34 points relay, making it a clean sweep for the Aussies after the men’s team triumphed on Sunday.
Photo: AFP
“It’s absolutely incredible, I can’t explain how happy I am,” Freney said.
“I’ve got eight events and my main one hasn’t even started yet, so these are just bonuses to me. Icing on the cake,” she added.
Meanwhile, two-time gold medalist Lin Tzu-hui of Taiwan won a bronze medal in the women’s 75kg powerlifting event on Monday.
Photo: EPA
Lin lifted 137kg in her first attempt, but failed to make the 141kg and 143kg lifts.
Fu Taoying of China won the gold medal with a 146kg lift, while Nigerian Folashade Oluwafemiayo also had a 146kg best, but took silver because she weighed more than Fu.
Lin, 30, expressed disappointment in her performance, saying she felt more pressured to win this year and that her competitors were apparently better than those at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.
Photo: AFP
However, she said she is already looking ahead to the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I have no right to feel dejected. I’ll put in all my efforts into preparing for the 2016 Brazil Paralympics. I will not be absent,” said Lin, who won gold at the 2004 and 2008 Paralympics.
Also on Monday, Tseng Lung-hui snagged a bronze for Taiwan in the men’s individual recurve W1/W2 archery event, after defeating Iran’s Ebrahim Ranjbarkivaj 7-3.
Earlier, Britain’s swim queen Ellie Simmonds won the women’s S6 200m individual medley in 3 minutes, 5.39 seconds, breaking the world record she set in qualifying and adding to her S6 400m freestyle title.
The teenager, who has a form of dwarfism, won the 400m and the 100m freestyle in Beijing four years ago at the age of just 13 and has become one of the faces of the London Games.
Poland’s Natalia Partyka — one of only two Paralympians to compete at this year’s Olympics — won gold for the third consecutive Games in the women’s singles Class 10 table tennis.
Partyka, who was born without a right hand and forearm, beat China’s Yang Qian 3-2, just weeks after she and Pistorius competed at the Olympics.
Pistorius dominated the headlines on Monday after he sensationally lost his T44 200m crown to Brazil’s Alan Oliveira on Sunday, but then claimed the length of his rivals’ artificial running blades was unfair.
Pistorius will face no disciplinary action over his outburst, Paralympics organizers said yesterday.
“There will be no disciplinary action against Oscar for his comments,” International Paralympic Committee director of communications Craig Spence told reporters yesterday.
Pistorius apologized for the timing of his comments in a statement on Monday, but maintained there was still a fundamental issue about the length of athletes’ prosthetics that needed to be addressed.
On the track on Monday, El Amin Chentouf of Morocco smashed the world best by more than 30 seconds in the T12 5,000m for visually impaired and blind athletes, finishing in 13:53.77.
Kenya’s Samwel Mushai Kimani, with guide runner James Boit, romped to a new world record of 3:58.37 in the T11 1,500m, beating Brazil’s Odair Santos, who was also inside his previous world best of 4:03.66.
Wheelchair racer Ryan Martin of the US added the T52 400m to his 100m title, while Ireland’s Michael McKillop outclassed the field to take the middle-distance double in the T37 1,500m for athletes with cerebral palsy.
The Northern Ireland-born 22-year-old, who had already successfully retained his 800m title from Beijing, had enough of a lead over Australia’s Brad Scott and Mohammed Charmi of Tunisia to begin celebrating in the back straight.
Fiji and India also got in the medals, with Iliesa Delana, an amputee, winning gold in the men’s F42 high jump, with Girisha Nagarajegowda Hosanagara winning silver.
China were way out in front in the overall medal table, crossing the 100-medal mark and nearing 50 golds, with Britain in second and Australia, Russia and Ukraine battling it out for third spot.
Taiwan, which has 18 athletes in the Games, is ranked 51st with one silver and two bronzes.
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