Paralympics: Gold for MacLean/Knappes in Tandem Sprint

GB top medal table in track cycling after a 1-2 in the tandem men’s B Sprint, a Team Sprint silver and women’s B Pursuit bronze on the final day of action in the Velodrome.

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Anthony Kappes and his pilot, Craig Maclean (former Silver medallist in the Mens Sprint 2006), beat their team-mates, Neil Fachie and Barney Storey, 2-0 in the best-of-three Sprint final for riders with a visual impairment.

Great Britain’s Team Sprint trio of Rik Waddon, Darren Kenny and Jon-Allan Butterworth broke the old record twice on Sunday but were a nail-biting 0.065 seconds short of defending their title against China.

The result is believed to make Kenny the most successful Paralympic cyclist ever, with six gold medals, three silvers and one bronze from his career. It was a third silver from three attempts at London 2012 for Butterworth, who is targeting five medals at these Games.

Defending champion Aileen McGlynn took bronze in the B 3km Pursuit with her pilot Helen Scott, beating the second British tandem, Lora Turnham and Fiona Duncan, in the bronze-medal match to add to her Sprint medal from two days ago.

The final-day haul took Great Britain’s medal tally to five golds, seven silvers and three bronze. Cycling action moves to the road at Brands Hatch for four days from Wednesday.

The highlight of the day was the battle between Britain’s tandems, made more exciting by the disqualification of favourites Kappes and Maclean in Saturday’s 1km Time Trial, which saw Fachie and Storey take gold.

With his partner Maclean, Kappes, who won both events in Beijing with Storey as his pilot, led from the front to take the first race. The duo won the second after a brush of arms upset their rivals with a lap and a half to go. Fachie threw his arms up in frustration but admitted later that the clash did not alter the result.

“You don’t get many opportunities,” said Kappes, 39. “Yesterday we blew it but today we had a chance to demonstrate what we can do so I can’t complain.” MacLean, a Team Sprint silver medallist with Sir Chris Hoy at the Sydney Olympics, said: “It would have been nice to celebrate a double but I suppose it redeems things a little bit.

Fachie, 26, said: “We’ve achieved what we came to do and that was to win two medals. Those guys were better than us – they came out after yesterday’s disappointment and showed that.” Storey, whose wife Sarah won two track golds, added: “That was always the goal: to get two British bikes in the final. Craig and Anthony were faster than us.”

Tandem racing could feature in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and Maclean admitted he might pilot Fachie for Scotland.

In the other all-British tandem medal race, for bronze in the B Pursuit, Glaswegian veteran Aileen McGlynn, with Helen Scott as pilot (pictured above) triumphed over her younger rival and expressed surprise, because she had targeted her training on the shorter Sprint while Turnham had targeted the 3km event.

“I’m more happy with this bronze than with my [Sprint] silver because we didn’t do any specific training for the Pursuit,” said McGlynn. Scott, a 22 year old from Halesowen, was part of GB’s able-bodied U23 sprint academy and has the chance to feature in the Olympic team in future but said she would be happy instead to continue this Paralympic partnership to Rio 2016.

“We’ve worked so hard and I’m just so happy with two medals,” she said. “We’ve been climbing mountains in Spain and that all paid off today. On those last two laps, I just thought about those mountains.”

Upset by China in the World Championships last February, GB fielded a new-look Team Sprint trio at London 2012 but they could not quite get past their rivals. “I’m still chasing gold but we couldn’t have done any more,” said Butterworth, who also won silver medals from the 1km Time Trial and C5 Pursuit and still has to race the Time Trial and Road Race at Brands Hatch.

“We set a PB and world record in qualifying and we would have got another record in the final but China beat us. Yes, we got silver but they were both world-class rides.”

Early Paralympic records are difficult to verify but Kenny passed Australian Christopher Scott’s career medal haul and said: “Chris was a big hero of mine, so it was nice to finally edge past him. The 42 year old Dorset rider won two golds in Athens and four in Bejing, adding to that with bronze in the C3 Individual Pursuit on Friday before Sunday’s second place.

Results

Men’s Ind.B Sprint

Finals
1 KAPPES Anthony/MACLEAN Craig beat 2:0
2 FACHIE Neil/STOREY Barney

Bronze
3 PORTO LAREO Jose Enrique VILLANUEVA TRINIDAD Jose Antonio beat
4 OSHIRO Tatsuyuki ITO Yasufumi REL

Women’s Ind. B Pursuit
1. GRAY Phillipa/THOMPSON Laura
2. WALSH Catherine/MEEHAN Francine
3. McGLYNN Aileen/SCOTT Helen
4. TURNHAM Lora/DUNCAN Fiona

Team Sprint
1 China
2 Great Britain
3 United States
4 Czech Republic
5 Australia

 

 

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