day 4

DAY 4

 

 As I sit and watch the Paralympics I ask where exactly are the interesting sports like Archery and goal ball? I also think of the Northern Irish athletes and the accomplishments that they have achieved. 3 of the 4 Irish gold medals have come from Northern Irish competitors. But I also wondered where Bethany Firth was today for her heat was she celebrating or was it something else.

 

We take our hands and feet for granted, there are people out their that have got neither. You would love to know how it is that they can balance or move themselves on their own

 

I took a look at the rowing and it made me wonder how much and what type of training they do to feel so comfortable with only using their arms. Some of the athletes have no legs at all and the only thing that they can use wheelchairs. I would like to see more sports like rowing

 

 

 

There was a giant error today as the people in charge calculated the differences wrong. This is the second biggest event in the world of this type and they should have the intelligence to be certain of things before they hand out medals it should not take that long    ????????

 

I have got a basic understanding of how and why the Paralympians have their numbers. The lower it is the faster it is and this is to do with what the Paralympians can do.  It is also to do with where they are disabled from the lower place in the body the worse the disability

 

  

 

As I sat and watched the sitting volleyball I wondered how it was able to be so fast. I would not have thought that they would have been going for as many winners (points) as they did. I thought that the game would have been more about control. There does seem to be a lot of people on a team though and the way that they move is also impressive. But I do wonder why so many of the team’s players are able to walk.

 

 

Goalball is a very interesting type of sport. They play it blind and they are using a rattle. There are three players and a larger goal and it is good fun to watch. If you want to watch something different but that you recognise goalball is the way to go

 

ATHLETICS

 

Shelly Woods ?? was very unfortunate not to win a medal in the woman’s 500m T54. She was in second place before the drive at the end which gave Shirley Reilly of USA silver and Christine Davis of Australia bronze but Edith Wolf of Switzerland was the leader for most of the race and deserved to get gold.

 

Kelly Cartright of Australia broke the world record in the womans long jump F42-44 to get gold, Stef Reid from Team GB got the silver with a Paralympics’ record and Marie Amelie le Fur of France gets the bronze.

 

In the men’s Discus throw F42 Britain’s Aled Davis could not believe his luck as he threw an amazing 46.1 metres to get gold. Afterwards he was riling up the crowd as he felt huge emotion after winning. Mehrdad Karam Zadeh received the silver with a throw of 44.62 metres and Lezeng Wang of china received the bronze

 

 

ROWING

 

In the Mixed Cox four LTAMx4 Great Britain won in a time of 3.19.38 to get gold. Germany got silver and Ukraine got the bronze medal

 

SWIMMING

 

Irishman Dara Mc Donald won the 400 metres freestyle s6 gold medal yesterday. Adding gold to an impressive tally of gold medals so far for Ireland!  

WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL

In the first and third periods of the game between Italy and south Africa it was very close and both were 13-12 shorelines. In the first period Italy won it and in the second it was South Africa’s. The problem for South Africa was the other 2 periods, in the second Italy had control as South Africa could only score 2 points to Italy’s 12. In the fourth it was like South Africa gave up loosing by 24 points to 5 that’s nearly double the points Italy scored in any other quarter. Final score South Africa 32 Italy 61.

 

In the later match Germany lost the match to Canada in the second period loosing by 19 points to 10 all of the other periods were close and if you took that period out it could have been anybody’s game. Germany won the first period by 18 points to 17 and the third by 19 points to 17. In the forth they probably believed they could win it but lost out by 20 points to 19. Final score Germany 66 Canada 73.  

 

5 A SIDE FOOTBALL 

In the 5 a side football today Spain beat Iran by 2 goals to 0. In other matches Brazil beat Turkey 4-0 and European champions France could only draw with China.  

CYCLING

 

Ireland have now got their first ever Para cycling medal but it is not the colour we wanted as New Zealand get the best time of recent times in the woman’s individual pursuit b. But we can’t help but be proud of Cathleen Walsh and Francine Meenan as this will be remembered forever in Irish Para cycling sport

In the mixed team pursuit Great Britain were very unlucky to loose out to China who got gold in the mixed team sprint C1-5 as nobody knew how good the Chinese were until a year ago. The British should be happy with their silver medal and the USA got bronze.    

 

My Paralympics athlete of today ......there are two like yesterday: Alad Jones of GB for his reaction and Cathleen Walsh for getting Irelands first medal on the track.