Paralympic highlights: September 8, 2008

Monday, September 8, 2008

September 8, 2008 is the 2nd major day of the 2008 Paralympic games, the below article summaries all the highlights.

Events

Women's S6 100 metres freestyle

Eleanor Simmonds, Great Britain's youngest athlete at the paralympic games, won the gold medal in the women's S6 100 metres freestyle, despite the fact that she is only aged 13.

Simmonds, who has achondroplasia said that "I can't believe it." She then said that "in the last 25 (metres) I knew everybody was around me, so I just got my head into it, got my last bit of energy and just went for it."

T54 women's 5000m

Six of the eleven competitors in the final of the T54 class womens's 5000m event failed to complete the course after a crash near the end of the race. As a result of this, a rerun will take place.

The medals won in the race will be returned due to this decision. The gold medal in the original race was won by the Canadian Diane Roy and the silver was taken by the British Shelly Woods.

The British competitor spoke about the crash after the race. "When the crash happened I had moved on the outside but I was at the back of the pack and was trying to get around someone," she said. "It all happened so fast in front of me that I had to move my chair over quickly and from there it was just a race to the line. "

S10 women's 100m Butterfly

The French Elodie Lorandi set a new world record in the S10 class of the women's 100m butterfly with her time of 59.80 seconds. The record was set in the first heat of event.

Women's 400m freestyle

Russian Anna Efimenko set a new world record in the S13 class of the women's 400m freestyle with her time of 4 minutes and 37.37 seconds. The record was set in the final of the event.

Medal Table

2008 Paralympics - Beijing, China
Flag	Country	G	S	B	TOT	Rank
	China	8	10	10	28	1
	USA	8	4	5	17	2
	Great Britain	7	5	3	15	3
	Australia	6	5	10	21	4
	South Africa	4	0	0	4	5

Source: Official Medal Count (update)

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Sources

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

2008 Summer Paralympics

Wikinews

Some information contained in this article was obtained from television, radio, or live webcast sources. Reporter's notes and the broadcast source details are available at the collaboration page.

"Records" — Beijing 2008, September 8, 2008
"Today's Medallists" — Beijing 2008, September 8, 2008
"Simmonds and Roberts star in pool" — BBC Sport, September 8, 2008
"Simmonds secures gold" — The Press Association, September 8, 2008
"Woods forced to give back medal" — BBC Sport, September 8, 2008

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