September 16, 2008	Tuesday	Ramazan 15, 1429

BEIJING, Sept 15: China established a huge lead at the top of the Paralympics medals table on Monday evening, racing to 80 golds — almost double the haul of its nearest rival on the last night of swimming in Beijing.

Vying with Britain for top spot earlier in these Games, the host nation now has 187 medals in total compared with Britain’s 41 golds and 96 medals.

As well as dominating the athletics events with a remarkable 34 golds, China’s haul includes 13 swimming golds, 10 in table tennis and eight in powerlifting.

On the final night of action in the Water Cube, Australia’s Matthew Cowdrey won his fifth gold, to match South Africa’s Olympian Natalie du Toit.

He helped his team to a first-place finish in the men’s 4x100m medley to go with his earlier golds in the 100m freestyle, 200m individual medley, 100m backstroke and 50m freestyle.

China also took triple gold in fencing to take their total of fencing golds to five, with Zhang Chuncui shocking Hong Kong’s world champion Yu Chui Yee, and Tian Jianquan and Hu Daoliang also winning.

South Africa’s Du Toit, who finished 16th in the Olympic 10 kilometre marathon swim last month, pledged earlier Monday to aim for more Olympic and Paralympic glory.

“Having the dream just to get to the Olympic Games and having that one accomplished, I think 2012 is definitely on the cards to do better and better,” she said.—AFP