Laura Thompson (left) and Northland's Emma Foy with their bronze medal in the women's Road Race B at the Rio Paralympics. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
Laura Thompson (left) and Northland's Emma Foy with their bronze medal in the women's Road Race B at the Rio Paralympics. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
In a day of contrasting Paralympic results, Emma Foy and Laura Thompson rode to a bronze medal while Chris Sharp and the Para-Sailing team ended their campaign in fourth after a countback.
New Zealand's leading tandem pairing Foy and Thompson (sighted pilot) took bronze in the road cycling Women's RoadRace B in a time of 1:59.33, 1:31 behind Poland in gold position and 0:59 behind Ireland in the silver.
After a delayed start, the Road Race was reduced to 70km from the usual 85km. Foy & Thompson broke from the pack at around the 50km mark and never looked back.
Foy was pleased with their efforts at Rio.
"I am really stoked to win bronze today, we had to work really hard to get it and it is a great way for us to finish our campaign," she said.
Going into the last day only six points separated the six top crews.
The medal race saw the kiwis in eigth around the first mark, however they then gained on downwind to take first place by the bottom mark.
They held most of the race until USA secured silver by overtaking them on the last upwind leg, pipping them at the finish line by one second.
New Zealand Para-Sailing crew Richard Dodson (left), Andrew May and Northland's Chris Sharp finished fourth in their regatta. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
This left New Zealand in third place until Canada overtook the French on the last short reach to the finish beating them by one second.
This meant New Zealand were on equal points in third position with the Canadians, but lost on a count back because Canada won one more race.
Sharp said they were disappointed but was pretty happy with their efforts.
"Before the race started we designed a game plan that was appropriate for the wind, we started and the wind turned the other way so we threw the game plan out the back door," he said.
"It really did feel wonderful out there today. We chose the right side of the course and got pretty good dividends out of it. Clearly I would have loved to have come first, I have always aimed for this."
"We went out there and busted a gut to medal today and although we did not quite achieve this, we got so close. I feel great and really happy with what we have achieved here in Rio."
Meanwhile Cameron Leslie wasn't able to replicate his medalling efforts in the pool, finishing eighth in the final of the men's S5 50m backstroke.
