Success for Western Australians on Paralympic Day Two
Day two of the Paralympics saw a number of Western Australians earn success in the rowing, swimming, athletics and wheelchair basketball.
This year Brock Ingram and Davinia Lefroy made history, helping to qualify Australia’s first ever LTA Mixed Coxed Four boat for the Paralympics.
On day two, the pair along with the rest of their crew competed in the Mixed Coxed Four qualification round.
The crew finished up fourth in their heat with a time of 3:32.88, sending them through to the repechages on day three.
Moving into the pool, Western Australian swimmers Guy Harrison-Murray and Jeremy McClure competed in the S10 50m Freestyle and S11 100m Backstroke events respectively.
Freestyler Harrison-Murray took an unconventional route to the final finishing the heats in equal eighth position.
These standings meant that Harrison-Murray would have to enter a swim off in order to earn his place in the finals.
After previously breaking his personal best in the heats, Guy went on to further shave time off his PB in the swim off, finishing in less than 25 seconds for the first time.
In the final Harrison-Murray came away with a seventh place finish and a time of 24.47 seconds.
Jeremy McClure also had a successful day in the pool after finishing first in his heat of the S11 100m Backstroke and heading straight through to the final.
In the final McClure walked away with a fifth place finish in a time of 1:09.11.
Also on day two, 100m sprinters Chad Perris and Ella Pardy competed in the finals for their respective sprint classifications.
After being the sixth fastest qualifier from the T38 100m Sprint heats the day before, Pardy knew that she would have to race even harder in order to obtain a podium finish in the finals.
She ended the race in 13.22 seconds, in sixth position, taking 0.8 seconds off her qualification time.
Fellow Western Australian, Chad Perris raced in the T13 100m sprint final, where he claimed the bronze medal.
Following a first place finish in his heat, Perris came out even faster in the final, earning his third place finish in a time of 10.83.
The last Western Australians to compete on Paralympic day two were wheelchair basketballers, Brad Ness, Shaun Norris and Adam Deans.
They competed with the Australian Rollers in a nail biting match against Turkey.
After being six points down heading into the final quarter, they managed to snatch the win by two, the final score 62 to 60.
Heading into day three the LTA Mixed Coxed Four crew will race in the repechage round, the Australian Rollers will verse Canada in their third group round match, Anton Zappelli will make his Paralympic debut in the R3 Mixed 10m Air Rifle Prone SH1 and Brant Garvey will compete in the Men’s PT2 Triathlon.