Huang nets fourth swimming gold at Rio Paralympics

Rio de Janeiro, Sep 16: Huang Wenpan celebrated his fourth victory in Rio’s pool as Chi added another nine golds to its Paralympic Games medal tally here.

Huang shattered the world record to win the 200m freestyle S3 fil in three minutes and 9.04 seconds at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Thursday, reports Xinhua.

The 21-year-old’s time was 7.41 seconds faster than the previous record set by his countryman Li Hanhua in 2010.

Despite his extraordiry time, Huang was pushed to the limit by Ukraine’s Dmytro Vynohradets, who grabbed silver, just 0.73sec behind. Li took bronze in 3:23.10.

Huang, who was born with cerebral palsy, has also won the 50m breaststroke SB2, 50m freestyle S3 and the mixed 4x50m freestyle 20 points at the Games.

His latest triumph was one of four swimming gold medals won by Chi on the eighth day of competition here.

Others to secure victories were Xie Qing, Zou Liankang and Xu Jialing.

Xie claimed the second Paralympic gold medal of her career - eight years after the first - by winning the 100m freestyle.

The visually impaired 28-year-old clocked one minute and 8.3 seconds to beat compatriot Li Guizhi by 28 hundredths of a second. Liesette Bruinsma of the Netherlands took bronze in 1:08.55.

Xie’s first Paralympic Games triumph came in the same race at the Beijing 2008 Games. She finished fifth in the event in London four years ago.

Thursday’s victory gave Xie her second medal at these Games after her bronze in the women’s 400m freestyle S11 on Saturday.

Zou earned his second gold medal of the Rio Paralympics, breaking the world record in the 50m backstroke S2 fil.

The 21-year-old finished in 47.17 seconds, beating his previous benchmark of 49.52.

Chi’s Liu Benying took silver in 48.84 and Serhii Palamarchuk bronze in 50.23.

Zou also claimed gold in the 100m backstroke S2 and silver in the 200m freestyle S2 at these Games.

Xu became one of the youngest gold medallists here when she won the 100m butterfly S9 fil.

Xu, who turned 14 last month, finished in one minute 7.90 seconds, 10 hundredths of a second faster than Spain’s Sarai Gascon.

Zsofia Konkoly of Hungary claimed bronze in 1:09.21.

Xu, who lost her left arm in a car accident when she was six, also claimed a bronze medal here in the women’s 400m freestyle S9.

Meanwhile Chi won its seventh wheelchair fencing gold medal by defeating Hong Kong, Chi, in the fil of the women’s epee team event.

Zou Xufeng, Zhou Jingjing and Rong Jing defeated Yu Chui Yee, Chan Yui Chong and Ng Justine Charissa 45-35 at Carioca 3 are.

Hungary beat Poland 45-44 in the bronze medal match.