SA improves on Paralympics medal tally

4 September 2012

Swimmer Charl Bouwer won his third medal of the 2012 London Paralympics on Monday evening as Team South Africa improved its medal tally by two.

Bouwer, who had already won a gold medal in the S13 50m freestyle and a silver medal in the 100m freestyle, added another silver to his personal haul in the 100m backstroke.

Ihar Boki of Belarus claimed his third gold medal with a third world record, winning the race in 56.97. Bouwer’s second placed time of 59.92 was an African record and comfortably ahead of third placed Charalampos Taiganidis of Greece, who clocked 1:01.10.

‘Bonus’

Interviewed after the race, Bouwer said he viewed swimming the backstroke as an “extra” event, and therefore winning a silver medal was “a bonus”.

Renette Bloem failed to progress beyond the heats of the women’s 100m breaststroke SB11.

Bronze

Out on the track, Union Sekwailwe claimed a bronze medal in the men’s T38 400 metres after running a personal best time of 51.97 seconds.

Victory went to Mohamed Farhat Chida of Tunisia in 50.43, with China’s Wenjun Zhou second in a regional record of 51.56. South Africa’s Marius Stander placed sixth in 53.62.

Pieter du Preez finished sixth in the final of the men’s 100m in the T51 class for wheelchair athletes in a time of 24.21 seconds. Finland’s Toni Pispanen raced to the gold in a Paralympic record of 21.72 seconds.

Field events

In field events, Duane Strydom took eighth place in the men’s T35/36 discus throw. His best distance of 35.64 metres was 2.90 metres behind the winner’s Sebastian Dietz’s 38.54m.

Zandile Nhlapo also picked up an eighth place in the women’s F33/34/52/53 javelin competition.

She threw a season’s best 15.43 metres, but Germany’s Birgit Kober was light years ahead of the rest of the field with a world record throw of 27.03 metres, which was close to seven metres ahead of runner-up Marie Braemer-Skowronek, also of Germany.

Wheelchair tennis

World number 10 Kgothatso Montjane was beaten in the round of 16 of the women’s wheelchair tennis competition. Up against world number four, Jiske Griffioen of The Netherlands, Montjane went down 6-2, 6-2.

The men’s wheelchair basketball team was again on the wrong end of a result, going down 79-54 to Turkey.

That defeat left them winless and it also meant they did not move on to the playoffs.

Medals

By Monday evening, Team South Africa had slipped to 23rd on the medal table, with two gold , five silver, and five bronze medals, for a total of 12 medals.

China is comfortably ensconced at the top of the standings with 45 gold, 31 silver and 35 bronze medals taking their total to 112 medals in all.

Hosts, Great Britain (19, 25, 19, 63) remain in second place, but Russia (16, 20, 13, 49) has just pushed Australia (16, 13, 19, 48) into third place.