Richard Whitehead storms through to win gold in the Men's 200-meter T42 Final:
[Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images]
From a Paralympic Games gallery at The Big Picture.
The video of this particular race has been getting quite a bit of attention:
It is an astonishing performance, but I feel sorry for the poor guys left behind, who you can see in that first photo. They, of course, are single amputees, running against Whitehead the double amputee. It's simply not a fair race. We saw the same in the T44 200 metres final: the double-amputee guys were storming ahead at the end.
In the T44 100 metres though, as in tonight's fabulous gold medal run by Jonnie Peacock, the single amputee Peacock beat the double amputee Oscar Pistorius. Another 100 metres and we'd have seen Pistorius surge ahead. Two blades are slower to start off - in the T42 Whitehead was at the back after 100 metres - but once they get going they're way faster. Ideally the one and two bladers should be competing separately....as I'm sure the powers-that-be now realise.
There's a good piece by Nicole Gelinas at City Journal (via) on how America is missing out on the Paralympics, and why that's a shame. It's true. Despite my technical quibbles, this is great stuff. Watching Hannah Cockcroft power through to take the T34 200 metres gold tonight would put a smile on anyone's face.
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