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China Have Bittersweet Day in Sydney Paralympics
China began to show the depth of its strength on Friday when they won six gold medals to finish third in the medal tally of the Sydney Paralympics.
But China's sweetness was adulterated by something bitter as Li Dongmei's gold in the women's discus throw F54 was deprived following a classification review.
As the rule goes, the classification process must be completed at least two days prior to the start of the competition and the classification are subject to be reviewed during training and competition.
Judging by Li's waist function in the competition, the medical officials of the organizing committee decided to reclassify her into F55, which means her gold performance was disqualified.
"It is the final ruling, which we can not claim against,"said Jia Yong, a senior official with the Chinese delegation.
"But such things are normal in the competition involving the athletes with a disability," he added.
The cloud, however, was soon dispersed by six gold medals, which pushed China from seventh on Friday to third in the medal table.
Bian Jianxin wrote her name in the history of the women's powerlifting books with a lift of 102.5 kg in the 40kg pool, when the sport made its Paralympic debut at Sydney.
What made her victory more special was that she pulled off three lifts -- 98kg, 100kg and 102.5kg -- to break her own world record of 97.5 kg set last year in Bangkok.
"I controlled my diet prior to the Paralympic Games, not aiming to win by taking the bodyweight advantage. I just want to challenge myself for the record," she said.
Another Chinese who won gold with record performance was Huang Wentao.
He captured the title with a distance of 14.16 meter in the men's triple jump F12 and smash the previous Paralympic mark of 14.10 meters.
The other three golds came from swimming competition. He Junquan timed 41.13 seconds to win the men's 50m butterfly S5 event and Zhu Hongyan took the women's 200m individual medley SM12 with a time of two minutes 38.82 seconds.
Dong Qiming added another gold with a time of 3:02.82 in the women's 200m individual medley SM11 final.
Today is "Super Saturday" at the Paralympics Games with 15 of 18 sports in action -- the only day with so many sports involved. A total of 57 gold medals in eight sports were dicided.
In the medal tally after Saturday's competition, the top three are Spain (21), Britain (21) and China (16).
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