Paralympics: Time to party and look ahead towards Athens

By GREG ANSLEY

SYDNEY - It was the best of times and the worst of times.

On Saturday afternoon, Auckland Paralympic rider Jayne Craike fulfilled a childhood dream by collecting the equestrian gold she won on Thursday and winning another medal, a silver.

That night the Wheel Blacks lost to Australia, missing the chance to play the United States for wheelchair rugby gold yesterday and having to settle for bronze against Canada.

But despite the post-rugby gloom, the New Zealand Paralympics team will this evening be celebrating their six gold medals, eight silver and four bronze.

They won the same number of medals overall as in Atlanta. Although there were three fewer golds this time, the successes came in a wider range of sports. The 1996 performance included 10 medals collected by two athletes.

These were the Games which saw performance, technology and funding make a quantum leap, and where more countries than ever took part. By Saturday night, almost 50 Paralympic records had been broken in athletics alone.

These were also the Games in which Australia - already on a very intense national high and pumping with talent - humbled the world, winning more medals than even the United States.

New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie said planning was already under way to develop programmes for Athens in 2004.

"I'm delighted with the team's performance," he said. "We've achieved all we could have hoped to achieve. The medals we've got have been over a broad range of sports, and that's probably the most pleasing thing."

This was little consolation on Saturday, when the Aussies humbled New Zealand on the wheelchair rugby court.

The Wheel Blacks should have won after dominating the first half of the game.

Their 39-40 defeat was all the more galling in that it came from the Kiwis' own mistakes.

Yesterday there were no mistakes against Canada. The Wheel Blacks led 9-8 in the first quarter, 20-14 at halftime and 32-25 at the end of the third quarter, winning bronze with a 43-32 fulltime score.

"Great to win, great to have a bronze medal to add to the team collection, but bitterly disappointed we're not in the final," said captain Grant Sharman.

"But these things happen. We put it behind us, we were gutted, but we came back from that against a good side and we put them away for good."

The United States defeated Australia 32-31 in the final.

At the equestrian centre on Saturday, Craike, who lost a leg after a horse rolled on her as 17-year-old, rode her way to silver in the Grade 4 freestyle event on Australian horse Neverselde Samonienen, finishing behind Britain's Gebbie Kay.

She was also presented with the gold medal she won in the mixed individual test, initially awarded to Norwegian Ann Cathrin Evenrud because of a counting error.

"I've dreamed of this as long as I can remember, ever since I started riding at five," Craike said.

"When I had my accident I thought it was all over. To be here is a dream come true."

In other weekend events, double gold-winner Dave MacCalman came fourth in the F52 shot put, gold and silver-winner Peter Martin was placed fifth in the F53 javelin, gold medal swimmer Dean Booth was fourth in the S7 50m freestyle, and powerlifter George Taamaru came fifth in the over-100kg group A event.

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