Swimmers and Cyclists Add Five Golds to British Haul

Great Britain's swimmers won two gold medals after the cyclists completed a dominant track program with three more wins at the Paralympic Games in Beijing today.

The men's sprint team of Darren Kenny, Jody Cundy and Mark Bristow capped a spectacular performance at the Velodrome with a third gold on the final day of track cycling and a 12th overall after Sarah Story and Anthony Kappes - with Story's husband Barney as his tandem pilot - triumphed.

But the swimmers were not to be outdone and after Jon Fox took silver and Louise Watkin and Sean Fraser won bronze, Heather Frederiksen claimed gold in the women's S8 100 metres backstroke and the men's 4x100m freestyle team triumphed, taking Britain's gold medal tally to 21, second only to China in the medal table.

Frederiksen, who lowered the world record she set in the morning heats to 1min 16.74sec in the final, was a promising able-bodied swimmer before an accident ended her career. She thought she would never swim again, but was inspired by the performances of her friends Rebecca Adlington - a double gold medalist in last month's Olympics - and Joanne Jackson, who won bronze, to get back in the water.

"When I learnt to swim again, I thought Beijing would be a bonus for me and it would be London that I'd go for," said Frederiksen. "To do something like Becky Adlington - when she won that gold medal I said to my coach 'I want one' - it's a dream come true."

Meanwhile, former swimmer Sarah Storey was among the golds for British cyclists at the Velodrome. Storey, who was competing in her fifth Games but her first on the bike, won the women's LC1-2/CP4 individual pursuit in a world record of 3min 36.637sec.

Going into the race she knew even if she lowered her own world record mark of 3min 48.622sec it may not be enough. Her LC1 category (for athletes having minor or no lower limb disability) was combined with two other categories at the Games, meaning the final positions were determined by a factoring system based on world records.

Despite taking eight seconds off her own world best in the heat, she qualified second fastest for the final behind Jennifer Schuble, who set a world record for her class of 4min 01.243sec. But Story went even faster in the final, shaving a further four seconds off the mark.

Story's husband Barney then clinched his second gold medal of the Games as tandem pilot alongside partially sighted Kappes in the B&VI 1-3 sprint, the pair having also won the men's B&VI 1-3 one-kilometer time-trial on Monday.

The duo, who defeated Argentina in the quarter-finals and Japan in the semi-finals, clocked 10.758sec in the first sprint and 11.524sec in the second to beat their Australian counterparts 2-0 in the cat-and-mouse final.

Then, in a fitting finale to the track cycling program, the men's sprint team defeated hosts China in the team sprint final in 49.323sec.

Overall, Britain won all bar one cycling event in which they were involved as the Union Flag remained flying high at the Velodrome following last month's Olympics where the team won seven out of 10 titles.