China sweeps wheelchair fencing golds at Beijing Paralympics

Source: Xinhua | 09-15-2008 20:26

BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese wheelchair fencers continued their gold medal haul as they swept all three gold medalson offer at the Beijing Paralympic Games on Monday.

China, claiming two golds on Sunday, made an emphatic assertion of its dominance in the men's individual epee Category A and B, andthe women's individual epee Cat. A by pulling down world top players.

China now led the medal standings with five golds, three silversand one bronze as Chinese Hong Kong took the second place with one gold, one silver and one bronze. Belarus and France shared the third position with one bronze respectively.

In the men's individual epee Category A, the 18-year-old ChineseTian Jianquan did not look threatened when he met his higher-rankedteammate Zhang Lei in the final.

Tian, who started training four years ago, showed his potential in this sport as he won a bronze medal at the 2005 World Cup event.

The 26-year-old Zhang, winning a silver on Sunday in the foil Cat. A, was not in a good form due to the fever as Tian took the lead 14-9, but Zhang recovered to fight back to score two points consecutively to shorten the gap 14-11.

Tian from Jiangsu Province kept a cool head and closed out the bout 15-11, taking the winning point with a speedy thrust.