U.S. team wins 11 more medals, brings total count to 33
September 2, 2012
LONDON – On day four of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, the U.S. team added 11 more
medals to its count. Below is a brief recap of the action.
Cycling
On the final day of track cycling the American team of Joe Berenyi (Aurora, Ill.), Sam Kavanagh (Coram, Mont.) and Jennifer Schuble (Houston, Texas) collected the U.S. team’s fifth medal of the track cycling competition, a bronze, the first in a team event.
The U.S. will now try to add to its five track medals in the road cycling events which are slated to start on Sept. 5 with the men’s individual time trials.
Equestrian
Sunday saw the conclusion of the Team Championship as well medals awarded for individual performances in Grade IV, III and 1a competition at the 2012 Paralympic Games. The U.S. team put in determined efforts in both the Team and Individual Tests and finished in seventh place.
Rowing
The U.S. trunk and arms mixed double sculls crew of Marine Corps veteran Rob Jones (Lovettsville, Va.) and Oksana Masters (Louisville, Ky.) won bronze Sunday at the London 2012 Paralympic Games in Eton Dorney, outside London. It is the first Paralympic medal in the trunk and arms mixed double sculls event for Team USA.
China won gold in 3:57.63, with France taking silver in 4:03.06. The U.S. crew was in
sixth place at the start, but worked it's way through the field, crossing the line in 4:05.56 to edge out Great Britain by 0.21 seconds.
Jones is a U.S. Marine Sergeant who became a bilateral above knee amputee in July of
2010 while serving in Afghanistan. Masters, also a bilateral above-knee
amputee, was adopted from the Ukraine at the age of seven.
Swimming
Mallory Weggemann (Eagan, Minn.) led the U.S. efforts in the pool Sunday night with her first gold medal of the 2012 London Paralympic Games. In all, the Americans picked up four more medals with Kelley Becherer, Rudy Garcia-Tolson and Rebecca Anne Meyers also finishing on the podium today.
Team USA's total medal count in swimming is now 16, the most of any sport.
With a time of 31.13, Weggemann set a new Paralympic record in the 50 meter freestyle
(S8) and also broke the American record. Jessica Long, who won gold in each of
her three previous finals in London, finished fifth in the event.
Becherer was also crowned champion Sunday, winning a tightly-contested showdown in the
100m freestyle (S13). The 22-year-old finished with a time 59:56 to edge out Canadian Valerie Grand-Maison and claim the gold. Meyers, who was not expecting a medal in the race, finished third. “It feels good to do it with a teammate,” Becherer said of her win.
A three-time Paralympian, Becherer went into this event with the fastest qualifying time from the morning preliminary, but knew what she was up against. “I’ve been racing a lot of these girls for a long time so I kind of know what they can do. I knew it was going to be a tough race.”
This gold medal comes on the tails of the gold Becherer won last night in the 50m freestyle. “This is only my third gold medal,” she said. “All the training goes into it and you just … I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m speechless.”
Garcia-Tolson claimed the silver medal in the men’s 200m IM, finishing with a personal best 2:33.94. Though his time was an American record and nearly two seconds faster than the morning session, where he set the world record, Garcia-Tolson finished behind Yevheniy Bohodayko of the Ukraine, who won and broke the world record with a time of 2:33.13.
“The Ukrainian had a great race, I wasn’t expecting him to come up and do as well as he did, but hats off to him,” said Garcia-Tolson after the race. He considers the 200m IM his main event, and he already has goals for the race in the future. “It’s just an amazing experience and it lit a fire under me to train harder now – I want to get that back.”
Still to come for Garcia-Tolson over the course of these Games is the 100m backstroke
and the 100m dash on the track.
Finishing fourth in their respective events on Sunday were Cortney Jordan in the 200m IM
(SM7) and Tucker Dupree in the 100m butterfly (S12). Lantz Lamback was seventh
in the 200m IM (SM7).
Track & Field
In the final bend of the women's 5000m (T54) race, Shirley Reilly burst from the pack to secure the silver medal behind Switzerland’s Edith Wolf at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Reilly crossed the line in 12:27.91, just off the 12:27.87 winning time.
"I definitely wanted to go for the win, but I'm OK with the silver,” three-time U.S. Paralympian Reilly said. “This is my third Paralympics, I attack really well in battle, and hopefully in my next race I can go out with the gold."
It was an electric evening in London as the eyes of the world turned toward the Olympic Stadium for some of the most anticipated events of the London 2012 Paralympic Games. U.S. athletes competed in seven track and field medal events tonight, after a strong showing in the qualifying rounds, and brought home four medals including gold and bronze medals in the men's T52
100m.
“I am so excited,” said Raymond Martin (Jersey City, N.J.), who prevailed in a men's T52 100m field that included two American teammates. “The 100 is not my best, to be golden is unbelievable.”
Martin crossed the line in 17.02 to win Team USA's first track and field gold of the Games. Competing in his fourth Games, Paul Nitz (Bloomfield, Conn.) captured the bronze medal in a time of 17.99. Josh Roberts finished sixth in 18.86.
A trio of Americans, Jim Bob Bizzell, Blake Leeper and Jerome Singleton, were all smiles headed into the men's T44 200m final as flash bulbs popped around the sold out stadium of more than 80,000 spectators. At the exciting finish, Leeper desperately dove across the line. Then he anxiously awaited the official results, which put him third.
The fought race was won by Brazil’s Oliveira Alan Fonteles Cardoso in 21.45 with South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius finishing with a silver medal. Pistorius, who became the first amputee to run at the
Olympic Games earlier this summer, ran a 21.52. With a time of 22.46, Leeperopened his first ever Games with a bronze.
“To have missed a medal in one of my favorite events, I would have been crushed,” said Leeper. “I would do anything for it, I dove and it stung a little bit but it was worth it, I got it.”
April Holmes, the reigning world and Paralympic record holder in the women's T44 100m final, was the final Team USA athlete competing on Day 4. The race was capped with another diving finish for the Americans as Holmes captured third crossing the line in a season’s best
time of 13.33.
"I am just so proud to be on this team," she said. "It was hard to make this U.S. team and to make it, to get to come here and put USA across my chest and win a bronze is truly special.”
The action continues Monday at Olympic stadium for Team USA.
Wheelchair Tennis
Team USA’s David Wagner (Hillsboro, Ore.), the No. 1 ranked quad men’s player in the world and the top seed at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, won his first round singles match in straight sets defeating South Africa’s Lucas Sithole 6-2, 7-5 on Sunday.
In other action today, the U.S. got another win in the men’s quad division when Nick Taylor (Wichita, Kansas) defeated Japan’s Shota Kawano 6-1, 7-5.
“It feels really good to get the first win under my belt,” said Taylor after the match. “It feels like we’ve been here for awhile so it’s nice to finally get started.”
If Wagner and Taylor win their next matches they will find themselves in familiar territory- in a match up against each other, where Wagner is leads head to head 60-7. The two played against each other for bronze in Beijing.
Three other players competed individually for Team USA today.
Stephen Welch (Southlake, Texas) fell to 11th seed Joachim Gerard of Germany 6-7, 2-6, Jon Rydberg (Oakdale, Minn.) fell to Frenchman Michael Jeremiasz and Brian Barten (Tucson, Ariz.) fell to Marco Innocenti of Italy 3-6, 4-6.
Team USA lost all three men’s doubles matches with Welch and Rydberg battling to three sets, before they were bested 6-1,3-6, 6-7. The team of Noah Yablong (Ocean Ridge, Fla.) and Steven Baldwin,(San Diego, Calif.) lost to Sweden’s Stefan Olsson and Peter Vikstrom 0-6, 1-6.
Tennis action continues Monday with the women’s singles featuring Emmy Kaiser (Ft. Mitchell, Ky.) and Mackenzie Soldan (Louisville, Ky.).
For more information and results visit www.usparalympics.org and www.youtube.com/usparalympics.
Go Team USA!
As posted by:
U.S. Olympic Committee, Paralympic Division
1 Olympic Plaza | Colorado Springs, CO 80909
paralympicinfo@usoc.org | www.usparalympics.org
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