Aussie teenager Paton digs gold to beat bullies

Paton won her sixth gold medal of the Games, surpassing Priya Cooper as the Australian swimmer to win most gold at a single Paralympics. Her efforts, which have included eight world records, also helped Australia consolidate its lead at the top of the medals table over Britain, Spain and the United States.

"I don’t think they’ll be teasing me anymore," said Paton after beating Emma Mounkley of Britain to win the 50m freestyle in a personal best 29.13s an event she had never before won in international competition.

After qualifying second by 0.1s behind Mounkley in the heats, Paton always had a fight on her hands but her battling spirit pulled her home when it counted. Old enough to be her mother, Beatrice Hess, 38, went one better and picked up her seventh Sydney gold, helping France to the women’s mixed disability medley relay final in a record 3.10.37s, 17 seconds ahead of Germany in second.

World records tumbled at every turn in the pool, with 15 new marks set in 23 races, including China’s Xiaoming Xiong posting 26.36s in the men’s 50m freestyle for swimmers with leg weakness.

On the track, cerebral palsy sprinter Tim Sullivan of Australia won his fifth gold in the 4x100m relay. Australia’s men gave the dominant host nation a spectacular start to the day, taking five golds in the early session.

Wheelchair sprinter John Lindsay, the reigning champion, topped off a near-perfect morning for the Aussies when he won the T53 100m in 15.59s, ahead of Thailand’s Sopa Intasen. It followed Geoff Trappett taking gold in the T54 100m by upsetting world record holder David Holding of Britain.

Tim Matthews delighted the crowd by throwing his shoes, a la Maurice Greene, into the crowd after Australia’s amputte 4x100m relay team smashed the world record of 44.64s by more than a second.

In the field, Mexican Adrian Paz speared his javelin a world record 19.34m to win gold in the wheelchair category ahead of teammate Maximo Mauro. Another record fell in the men’s wheelchair discus when Iran’s Aref Khosravinia added a metre to the former mark of 44.05m. More than 10,000 people watched Australia’s David Hall, a four-time US Open champion, win gold in the men’s wheelchair tennis final. In windy conditions, the world No.1 came from a set down to trounce Stephen Welch of the United States 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 6-2. In the women’s doubles, Dutch pair Esther Vergeer and Maaike Smit overpowered Australia to give the Netherlands its third tennis gold.

The table tennis competition wrapped up with lavish praise heaped on the Sydney organisers and two gold for Korea.

Britain continued its equestrian dominance with Lee Pearson riding to gold in the individual freestyle to go with the one he won in the dressage. Jo Jackson took the honours in the women’s ndividual dressage to give the Brits five of the nine equestrian gold at stake here. Powerlifting gold went to Iran and the United States while Iran triumphed overcame Bosnia in the sitting volleyball final.

India lose appeal and first ever gold
SYDNEY: The court of arbitration for sport today rejected an appeal by Indian shotputter Yadvendra Vashishta who was stripped of his Paralympic gold after a classification dispute. Vashishta, who has polio, won in the F42 category, equivalent to an above knee amputee, after setting a new world record of 14.17m. But nine days later authorities told him he should have been in the F44 classification and took his medal away. The decision provoked anger in India, reaching the office of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who backed the appeal to no avail. “The decision was in favour of the International Paralympic Committee and that the Indian as a result of that has been stripped of his medal,” an IPC spokesman said. Indian Paralympic team chief Shanker Iyer said the matter had sparked a storm of protest in India.

“It is the first gold medal in the history of India in the Paralympics,” he said. “The first gold and it was snatched. There’re a lot of angry people in India, we’re getting phone calls from all over.” He said the matter had gone to the Prime Minister and minister for sport. The hearing came as IPC president Robert Steadward criticised member nations for taking appeals to the courts and not allowing them to be resolved within the sport.

NPCI for govt support
PTI adds: While Paralympic Games are as competitive as the Olympics, few people would know that four athletes from India are here participating in shooting, bench press, power-lifting and shot-put. There has been a marked absence of government support and media representation from the sub-continent at the event. There are about 5,000 athletes participating in the world’s second-largest sports carnival. With the exception of India, all the 122 participating countries here have a national Paralympic committee supported by their respective governments. The four Indian athletes Vijay Munishwar, Vikram Singh Adhikari, Yadvendra Vashista and Naresh Kumar Sharma are here under the aegis of National Paralympic Committee of India (NPCI), a voluntary organisation based in Bangalore.