Britain shares glory with Australia in first track cycling race day

Source: Xinhua | 09-07-2008 20:03

BEIJING, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Britain won three out of five gold medals in track cycling in the first race-day at Beijing Paralympics, leaving other two golds to Australia here on Sunday.

Britain scooped the first gold with Simon Richardson setting a new world record and beating several hot favorites to do it in men's one kilometre time trial of LC 3-4 category.

Richardson, 42, romped home in a time of one minutes and 14.936 seconds to set a new LC3 class record, leaving silver medal to Japanese Masaki Fujita. Athens 2004 winner Greg Ball of Australia set a new LC4 world record at one minute and 17.681 seconds to grab the bronze.

Host cyclist Zhang Lu broke the Paralympic record of LC 3 class to finish sixth.

"I'm not very satisfied with my performance today. I can do better on the outdoor track," said Zhang Lu. "I am better at team sprint instead of 1km Time Trial actually."

Aileen McGlynn won Britain the second gold after taking a second off her own world record in women's 1km B&VI time trial together with her pilot partner Ellen Hunter at 1 minute and 9.066 seconds. Silver medallist Felicity Johnson set a new Paralympic best which lasted all of two minutes when McGlynn stepped up to smash both world and Paralympic marks going under one minute and 10 seconds for the first time ever.

"I trained together with Hunter six year ago and both of us trained very hard," said McGlynn. "Our first international games was the Athens Games and we won the title. It means a lot to us to defend it."

The bronze went another Australian pair of Lindy Hou.