Richardson lands first British gold (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Richardson lands first British gold

9:59am Sunday 7th September 2008

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Simon Richardson won Great Britain's first gold medal of the Paralympic Games in Beijing on Sunday with a stunning performance in the men's LC3/4 one-kilometre time-trial.

The 41-year-old, making his Paralympic debut, set a world record of one minute 14.936 seconds to take the first track cycling medal of the Games and extend Britain's dominance of the Laoshan Velodrome.

Seven of 10 track golds in last month's Olympics landed in British hands, while two of the finals were all-British affairs.

The Paralympic riders were hoping for similar dominance and Richardson delivered.

And the Union flag was soon flying high once again as Aileen McGlynn successfully defended her title in the women's B&VI 1-3 one-kilometre time-trial.

The 35-year-old defending champion from Glasgow lowered her own world record with a time of 1min 9.066secs as she and pilot rider Ellen Hunter retained the title they won in Athens.

McGlynn powered around the track to finish ahead of Australians Felicity Johnson and Lindy Hou, who took silver and bronze respectively.

Darren Kenny then made it a hat-trick of golds for Britain, successfully defending his CP3 individual pursuit title with a stunning performance.

The 38-year-old from Dorset smashed his own world record by six seconds in the heats and overtook his final opponent, South Korea's Jin Yong-sik, after little more than 1,000 metres of the final to claim his third Paralympic title.

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