The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 6-17, 2008
The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games September 6-17, 2008
(BEIJING, September 17) -- Four years of intense training and development paid off handsomely for CHN after it dominated the Paralympic Wheelchair Fencing competition.
CHN's men won gold in five of the six events and the women contested all four of their gold medal matches, winning one. No athlete from outside Asia managed to get on the podium in the women's competitions and only the Epee Category B bronze medalist Sayasunee Jana of Thailand prevented CHN and HKG from sweeping all 12 women's medals. Chan Yui-chong of HKG was the star female athlete, winning gold in both the Foil and Epee Category B.
In the men's competition, the only Europeans to contest gold medal finals were Category B athletes Laurent Francois of France and Mikalai Bezyazychny of Belarus. Both suffered defeats to CHN's irrepressible Hu Daoliang, although Francois bounced back to win the Sabre Category B gold medal in the competition's last event.
Hu won his double gold in the Foil and Epee Category B and his teammate Ye Ruyi won double gold in the Foil and Sabre Category A, thus making them the standout athletes in the competition.
CHN is a relative newcomer to Wheelchair Fencing and only sent three male athletes to Athens four years ago, the first time that CHN participated in the sport. Zhang Lei, Zhang Chong and Hu exceeded expectations in Greece, winning the gold medal in the Team Foil, the bronze in the Team Epee and Zhang Lei won the individual silver in the Foil Category A.
The CHN medal haul at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games - six gold, six silver and one bronze from ten events (there were no team events) - is evidence of the progress that has been made since a professional training program was put in place four years ago. This time, nine full-time Chinese athletes participated in the competition with seven winning medals.
HKG couldn't quite match its extraordinary performance of four years ago in Athens when it won gold in five of the six women's events and three of the nine men's events. This time the women won three out of four gold medal, plus a silver medal and two bronze medals.
HKG's men struggled in comparison to their female teammates. Chan Wing-kin lost in the Category A Foil and Sabre bronze medal matches and his teammate Wong Tang-tat suffered an early exit in the elimination rounds of his events. Hui Charn-hung, a double gold medalist in Athens, did slightly better, winning silver in the Sabre Category B.
