Sport

McKillop strides to gold again

MICHAEL McKillop took his second gold medal at the IPC World Paralympic Championships in the Rhone Stadium, Lyon when he was a comfortable winner of the 1500m in the T38 category. McKillop's time of 4:10.17 was a Championship Best Performance and he won by two-and-a-half seconds from Abbes Saidi of Tunisia.

The St Malachy's athlete dominated the race from the gun allowing Deon McKenzie to lead through a fairly pedestrian first lap in 70 seconds.

The Australian continued at the front until two laps to go when McKillop took up the running and passed through two laps on his own in 2:13.

At this point, it was only Tunisia's Abbes Saidi who offered any type of pursuit to the Glengormley man. McKillop was well clear at the bell and continued to forge on confidently at the front.

He passed 1200 metres in 3:21 and was able to coast home allowing Saidi to claw back a few metres without ever threatening.

Earlier McKillop's room-mate Jason Smyth continued to impress when winning his T13 category 100 metres semi-final in a Championship Best Performance of 10.72 seconds.

The Eglinton man rocketed out of the blocks and accelerated smoothly away from the rest of the field to win by more than three-tenths of a second. Nambala Johannes of Namibia, who took second place to Smyth in the 100m on Sunday, was again runner-up on this occasion.

South African Jonathan Ntutu was the winner of the other semi-final in 10.99 seconds and looks to be Smyth's main challenger in today's final. James Nolan, head of Irish Paralympic Athletics, was thrilled with Smyth's display. "Jason got out amazingly well in his 100 semi-final and had the field put away after 20 metres.

He looked very relaxed running 10.7 and the championship record. With Jason in this form the final will be very exciting."