China continues golden run, Paua New Guinea and Poland celebrate first medals

"I'm so excited that I got the silver. This is my personal best," said the 22-year-old university student who planned to work for the Paralympic committee after graduation.

Australian Heath Francis won the men's 100m - T46 gold and now has three Beijing Paralympic gold medals to his name.

Another sensational moment occurred when Poland's Paralympic debutant Marci Awizen raced to his first gold medal, and also the first athletics medal for Poland at the Beijing Paralympics.

On the top spot of the podium, the 23-year-old Polish cried so hard.

He said he had been working so hard for the moment, training seven days a week without a day off.

"This is my first Paralympics, this is my first medal and gold - so it's great. It is also the first athletics medal for Poland, so this means a lot to us. I have been dreaming about this for three years," he said.

Another event on Monday which sent the audience to deafening cheers was the men's 200m -T36 final, which saw So Wa Wai win the third gold, also the first in track and field for Hong Kong, China.

The 27-year-old defending champion who had already won a bronze in the men's 100m race in Beijing, dashed to his first gold in Beijing in 24.65 seconds, breaking the old world record created by him.

"This is the sixth gold medal for me in the Paralympics," said So, who attributed his win partly to "good luck" as well as practice.