The Bevern View Olympics- Week 3
Tennis and Track and Field
We saw the residents with manual chairs finish their sprints, but unfortunately Jonathan pulled out last minute so it was down to Amy and Mark to try and beat JP and Saleem’s time trials earlier in the games. Mark has already competed in the power chair category but was going for Gold once again in his manual chair.
The 25m sprint was close, with Saleem taking the Gold in 5.0 seconds, JP getting silver with 5.5 seconds, but Mark couldn’t get a clean sweep on the sprints, only clocking 6.95 seconds. Amy came in 4th just missing the bronze by a few hundredths of a second, but competed with a big smile the whole race.
In the 50m sprint JP turned the tables on Saleem, taking Gold in 15.2 seconds. Saleem could only settle for silver in 16 seconds. Mark collected another Bronze ahead of Amy with 16.7 seconds. We ended the manual races with the Hurdles (obstacle) race and meant that the medal order changed again. This time JP got the gold in 8.3 seconds but it was Mark dipping on the line for the silver in 8.52 seconds. Saleem’s 9 seconds sprint got him the bronze and Amy was a distance 4th, taking her time, smiling at the crowd.
Elsewhere, we had the first half of the draw for the Olympic tennis tournament. The Quarter Finals saw Amy beat her friend Chloe 2 games to 1. It was a game full of giggles and silliness. The second Quarter Final was more serious. Mark beat Saleem 2 -1 in a very competitive match where Saleem impressed with his accurate serving but he couldn’t handle Marks pin point returns to the corners. It set up a Semi-Final with Amy. Again it went to the 3rd Game and they battled it out to the bitter end, Deuce after Deuce… eventually Amy prevailed with a return down the line. Who will she meet in the final? Who will play Mark for the bronze medal?
Fencing, Boxing, Shooting
Fencing
How many marks could be made with a paint-tipped sword on to our Fencer Target in one minute? Paul’s answer was 29 giving him the gold medal, Mark Barrows got himself on the podium yet again with a 21 point silver and JP fought his way to bronze with 19 points.
Boxing
How many punches could our resident athletes do in one minute? We knew Paul would excel at this and he did not disappoint. he smashed out 50 punches in the 60 seconds. We were very impressed by James’ effort to move his fist towards the switch-activated glove, twice in the minute. Holly (10) , Chloe (8) and Mark (10) all got similar great scores, independently using their arms to stretch towards the glove. Then came JP, our former boxer. He came out of retirement wide eyed, and ready to go, punching out a brilliant 12 hits in the minute. We ended the competition with Ciaron who has had a great year training for this. He claimed the gold with 60 hits in 60 seconds. Ciaron was over joyed but meant that Paul took the silver and JP proudly received the Bronze.
Shooting Course
The competitors had 16 bullets to shoot targets with a variety of different points over 4 stations to gather as many points as possible, they then had a bonus 3 shots to hit a mannequin target. With Holly, JP and Chloe already medalling in the single target shooting, there was a chance for them to cement themselves in shooting history. JP started off well with a huge 46 points, but Chloe couldn’t repeat her heroics but still got a solid 26 points. Paul trumped that with a 30 pointer and James pushed JP close with a cracking 44 points including a triple head shot on his last 3 attempts. But it was Mark who surprised us all with a huge 53 pointer. Holly stepped up last to steal James’ bronze by 1 point (45) and officially crowning Mark as champion, whilst JP got the silver.
2 Width Swimming free-style time trial
Ciaron attempted his time trial and wowed us with a 22 second time!