Britain added two more golds to its haul at Saturday's road cycling competition of Beijing Paralympic Games when Daivd Stone became the first double gold medallist in the event and Darren Kenny won his fourth gold.
Taking the lead from the start of the mixed road race of CP1/CP2 category, Stone led all the way coming home over three minutes clear of his nearest opponent, Riaan Nel of South Africa and Italian Giorgio Farroni with just a second separating the silver and bronze medallist.
"I am very happy. I want to thank my coach Gary Brickley," said Stone. "It's a beautiful course and it has really nice roads. It's probably the best course.
"I approach my race in the best form I can possibly be in on the day. In regards to today's race, I approached it when we climbed the first hill and rode as hard as I could. Whoever was with me I would have ridden against, but no one was with me and it all went as planned. I just kept on riding, and I finished first."
"It's mainly because of Stone's hard work. He trained more than 20 hours a week. He trained very hard and recovered very fast," said coach Brickley. "He's an incredibly flexible cyclist. He can put relaxation into his race. He's also a great person to be around. His hard work makes him get around at all the races."
After winning Friday's silver in men's CP3 individual time trial, Darren Kenny won his fourth Beijing Paralympics gold in men's road race of LC3/LC4/CP3 category with a time of one hour 37 minutes and 0.74 seconds, two seconds ahead of silver medallist Javier Ochoa of Spain, who defeated Kenny on Friday.
Kenny took three golds in track cycling and this fourth gold made him to win medals in all five competitions he took part in.
"It's the best feeling I've ever had in my life. That was amazing. I put so much work into that. I feel like I'm going to explode," said Kenny.
"I wasn't so sure to win yesterday, when I finished second in the time trial. I just felt awful and very disappointed yesterday because I did a dew things wrong. I tried to come back today and my teammate did a fantastic job. We decided to keep on working all the time and it worked.
"It's an honor to race with Ochoa. It makes winning even more special," said Kenny.
German Andrea Eskau grabbed gold in women's road race (HC A/HC B/HC C). Eskau slip-streamed Monique van Der Vorst of Holland for much of the 36.3km course, overtaking her on the line and snatching gold by just a wheel's length, 0.13 seconds ahead of the Dutch rider. Eskau's teammate Dorothee Vieth came home in the third place 26 seconds behind the winner.
The victory for Eskau brings Germany level with Spain and the United States on three golds, two behind Britain on five, and brings her the satisfaction of proving her domination in women's handcycling as she took gold at the event at the 2007 world championships.
Italian Fabio Triboli won Italy's first road cycling gold as he finished first in men's LC1/LC2/CP4 road race with an advantage of 0.31 seconds ahead of silver medallist David Mercier of France.
(Xinhua September 13, 2008)