Kappes and MacLean win in an all-British final
Tandem team Anthony Kappes and Craig MacLean beat compatriots Neil Fachie and Barney Storey to win the individual men’s sprint gold in a nail-biting final at the velodrome.
The two teams met in the Paralympic final of the event on the fourth and final day of track competition at the London 2012 velodrome. Spain had earlier beat Japan in the bronze medal races.
Kappes, who is visually impaired, and his pilot MacLean beat the other British pair over two races in a best of three competition.
In the first race, the gold winning pair held off the challenge from their rivals to cross the line first. In the second, with the starting positions reversed, Kappes and MacLean tracked Fachie and Storey before overtaking them round the outside and racing ahead, opening up an insurmountable lead.
The result marks an upturn in the fortunes of the duo who had mechanical trouble at the start of one-kilometre time-trial event on Saturday and could not complete the event.
Fachie and Storey had won gold in the one-kilometre time-trial in a world record time on Saturday and came into the sprint event holding the world record of 10.282secs.
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Fastest qualifiers
Kappes, the reigning Paralympic champion for the sprint and MacLean clocked 10.050 seconds over the flying 200 metres to qualify fastest of the seven teams for the knockout phase.
Due to the number of teams in the event, Kappes and MacLean were given a bye to the best-of-three semi-finals, where they beat Japan’s Tatsuyuki Oshiro and Yasufumi Ito.
Fachie and Storey clocked 10.165 and were ranked second as they advanced to the quarter-finals, where they beat Argentina 2-0 followed by Spain in the semi.
Other British success in the velodrome included the women’s blind and visually impaired three-kilometres tandem pursuit, in which Aileen McGlynn and Helen Scott won bronze
Darren Kenny, Rik Waddon and Jon-Allan Butterworth were beaten in the final of the mixed C1-5 team sprint by a Chinese team who won in world record time.
The British trio, who win the silver medal, had earlier clocked a world record of 49.808 in qualifying after the Chinese trio lowered the mark by 0.004secs to 49.804 in the next heat.
