A Canadian View of the final Paralympics Day

by Brian Todd on 14 Sep 2008 Brian Todd of the Canadian team reports on the final day of the 2008 Paralympics in Qingdao:

Final day of racing for the Paralympic medals in the 2.4, Skud 18 and Sonar classes.

It was a perfect sailing day in Qingdao, winds were 9-12 from about 120 on the compass with a pretty good sea running and bright sunshine. Everyone brought their A game and there were plenty of positions up for grabs. There were 2 races today, making that 10 for the series and bringing on the second drop. After the first race in the 2.4 class things got tighter as Damien Seguin from France won and Paul Tingley from Canada finished 5th.

So the final race had all the marbles on the line and Paul Tingley (Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron) put the hammer down and delivered a first place finish to win the 'GOLD MEDAL'! Damien Sequin finished in Silver and John Ruf from USA sailed a hot series and took the Bronze.

There were a lot of lead changes in this fleet over the week and today any one of six people could have won, good to see such tight racing.

The Skud 18 class was won yesterday by Nick Scandone and Maureen McKinnon Tucker but the race for the silver and bronze was a showdown between Canada and Australia, In the first race today Canada thought they would practice 360’s following a few incidents but came back to be competitive in the second. In the end it was Daniel Fitzgibbon and Rachael Cox AUS that took the Silver, John McRoberts and Stacie Louttit (Royal Victoria Yacht Club) took the Bronze.

The Sonar fleet was also very tight and the French were in the power position in the last race but their jib blew up at the bottom mark and they had to sail in, Germany won the Gold, France won the Silver and Australia won the bronze. Our Canadian team of Ken Kelly, Don Terlson and Marc Shaw (Royal Victoria Yacht Club) finished 11th overall, they had many bright moments but the level of experience in the Sonar fleet right now is very tough with many full time athletes.

Our coaches have done a great job in working to keep the athletes focused and race ready, Craig Guthrie, Steve McBride and Don Martin worked 7 days a week from early AM to late in the evening and gave their all to ensure our athletes could be the best at this event. Congrats to them!!

While I am at it the people of Qingdao, all the volunteers, committees were amazing, I have been to many international events including Worlds, Olympics Pan Ams and so on but I have never experienced the level of organization as this event, they have certainly made an impression on the World!

Now it is container packing time, we will get that done tomorrow then off to Beijing for the closing ceremonies.