Paraplegic athletes return from games

Press, 15 July 1980, Page 28

Paraplegic athletes return from games

By

TIM DUNBAR

Two Christchurch members of the New Zealand team which contested the Olympic Games for the Disabled in Arnhem returned yesterday with thoughts of what might have been. One, Graham Condon, collected three medals — a gold, a silver and a bronze — in what was his fourth Olympic venture but w.as denied the world record he had eagerly sought. Condon won the gold medal in the discus — “my personal best with the throwing” — and an Olympic record into the bargain. However, the throw which might have set a new world paraplegic mark landed outside the stipulated area. And another Christchurch man, Dave Tarrant, is still “niggled a bit” because he believed he should have won the silver rather than the bronze in the pistol shooting. , J . “My shooting standard is about 365 — I got 360,” he said.

Tarrant said there had been so much build-up and tension that he had been

unable to get his pulse rate down during the event.

“There were television cameras for every position. Twenty of them shoulder to shoulder,” he said. While reluctant to make any excuses for what was still an admirable performance Tarrant expressed disappointment about the trouble getting practice before the competition started. “We couldn’t get on the range,” he said. As well as his bronze medal, Tarrant brought back with him a new pistol which he is keen to try out. Condon is now a fairly experienced Olympic campaigner, but he said that the competition was getting tougher all the time: “The 100 m (wheelchair) record was beaten by 2.55.”

The bearded Condon, who also won a silver in the slalom event (“I managed to borrow a smaller chair”) and a bronze swimming the breaststroke leg of the team swimming relay, said that the extent of the security was “comparable to Moscow.” He is hoping to compete

in another Olympics, and has the 1982 Far East and South Pacific International Competitions (F.E.S.P.I.C. games), at Hong Kong as his next big goal. Trish Hill, the winner of three medals at Arnhem, was briefly at Christchurch Airport on her way to Tima ru, but the noted paraplegic archer, Neroli Fairhall. was not with the party. Ms Fairhall, who ran away with the gold medal in the double F.I.T.A. round thanks to a world paraplegic record of 2404, had come as far as Auckland, although not intending to arrive back in New Zealand until next month.

She had originally been selected as an archer in the New Zealand team for the Moscow Olympics and has decided to contest the substitute international com-

petition — next month’s United States national championships. Unfortunately she was unable to obtain a flight to Los Angeles from Frankfurt and was gradually pushed south, ending up in Auckland.