EDINBURGH'S Libby Clegg ran a season's best as she booked her place in the Paralympic 100m semi-finals as the third fastest qualifier this morning.
Clegg, who is visually impaired, won sprint silver at the last World Championships but was disqualified when it was judged her guide runner had crossed the line before her. There were no such problems today as Lincoln Asquith, a Commonwealth Games si
lver medallist in 1986, helped her cross the line in 12.71 seconds.
"It's my first Paralympics and it's hard to know what to expect," said Clegg, whose main challenge will come from Ukrainian world champion Oxana Boturchuk.
"I'm not predicting anything spectacular and my first target was just to lower my personal best in both my events."
Broxburn's Jim Anderson added to his collection of 13 Paralympic medals with a second place in yesterday's 200m freestyle swimming but it was not the gold he wanted. Anderson's medal collection – he is also a former British disco dancing champion – might put Chris Hoy's in the shade but the 45-year old insists age isn't finally catching up with him at his fifth Games.
"I'm disappointed because I know I could have done better," he said, after Russian Dmitry Kokarev touched home nearly 15 seconds quicker to also break the Scot's four-year old world record. "I feel there is plenty left in me for my next three events and I want that gold even more now."
Aileen McGlynn stormed to Paralympic cycling gold to keep the Saltire flying high and proud at the Laoshan velodrome. The visually-impaired 35-year old and pilot Ellen Hunter retained their women's 1km time trial title yesterday and rewrote the world record in the process.
But McGlynn has already focused her attention on another medal, when she competes in the tandem pursuit later this week.
"I'm delighted, especially to have broken the world record," she said. "It was a hard ride but we knew we had it in us to record a really good time and it all came together when it mattered.
"The training we've done gave me confidence that it would work out but we are not finished yet. We've been working really hard on the pursuit and we'd be disappointed if we didn't match this result then."
McGlynn is quick to point out that Britain's Paralympic cyclists have been enjoying the sort of success recently experienced by their Olympic counterparts for several years. But she paid tribute to Hoy, whose forceful influence it seems is still helping win medals in Beijing.
"It was watching Chris at the 2002 Commonwealth Games that inspired me to pick up the phone and find out about opportunities for disabled cyclists," she added.
"I enjoyed road cycling but I hadn't really seen track cycling until then and it was something that I wanted to do. The timing was just right. I got the opportunity to go down to Manchester and that was it, a few weeks later I was on the team."
• LLOYDS TSB, proud first partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and supporter of ParalympicsGB on their journey to 2012. Visit LloydsTSB.com/ London2012
