Northland athletes all winners
Northlanders can be proud of their local paralympians who have punched well above their weight at the 10-day Rio Paralympics Games.
Four days into the Games, Dargaville born cyclist Emma Foy and her tandem sighted pilot Laura Thompson finished second in the women’s B 3000m individual pursuit with a time of 3:31.569, only three seconds behind the British tandem of Lora Turnham and pilot Corrine Hall.
Foy was proud of their achievement but set her sights on other results.
They missed out on qualifying in the time trial but on the last day of competitions the pair took bronze in the road cycling women’s race with a time of 1:59.33.
Foy said she was stoked to win two medals at her first Paralympics.
‘‘It has been great having Laura as my pilot, I learnt so much from her about what a Paralympic Games would be like and it really helped me prepare.’’
Earlier in the Games paraswimmer Cameron Leslie from Whangarei smashed his own world record by two seconds to win his third consecutive Paralympics gold medal in the 150m individual medley SM4 final. It is his third consecutive title in the event after gold in the 2012 and 2008 Games, in London and Beijing.
On the last day of competition New Zealand’s Paralympic sailing crew of Richard Dobson, Andrew May and Kerikeri’s Chris Sharp were unlucky to miss out on a bronze by a countback.
The trio had claimed a race win on day one and remained consistently in with a medal chance throughout the three-person keelboat’s six day regatta.
The Kiwis were leading the medal race until the last upwind leg saw them overtaken by the USA who beat them to the finish line by one second.
At that stage they were still up for the bronze, but Canada’s win over France put them on equal footing with New Zealand and a countback pushed the Sonar team into fourth place.
Skipper Dodson said he was pleased with the result considering they had entered the regatta ranked eighth.
Sailing is not included in the 2020 Paralympic at Tokyo.
New Zealand’s total medal haul for the 2016 Paralympics is 21 three above the country’s goal for the Games and their best ever result.