Swimming - Women's 50m Freestyle - S9 Final - London 2012 Paralympic Games

GOLD LIN Ping CHN - People's Republic of China
SILVER WATKIN Louise GBR - Great Britain
BRONZE COLE Ellie AUS - Australia

London, September 5
Seven swimmers finished within just 72 hundredths of a second when LIN Ping (CHN) claimed gold in the women's 50m freestyle S9 in a Paralympic record 29.12.
It was LIN's first medal in London. 2010 world champion in this event Louise WATKIN (GBR) won silver in 29.21. Ellie COLE (AUS), London 2012 gold medallist in the 100m backstroke and in the 4x100m freestyle 34 points, won bronze in an Oceanian record 29.28.
Natalie DU TOIT (RSA), who had won the 50m freestyle S9 at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, came seventh in 29.84.

"I wasn't expecting that win. This morning I wasn't really doing that well in the first 25 metres, so I knew that tonight I really had to work on that. I kept going until the last second. It's my best result, I've never got this result before in training."
"I've been training for six years. The reason I got into swimming was that there was a PE teacher at my school who always trained with disabled children during his free time. I was originally going to be a track athlete, but I wasn't too good, so I told my teacher that I loved swimming and I wanted to get on to the swimming team. However, I did not know how to swim. I learnt everything from scratch. That was in my last year of primary school. After I started learning how to swim, I got really good at it."

- LIN Ping (CHN) - gold

"I got a bronze in Beijing, so to get silver here, it's unreal."
"I knew I had to focus on tonight and I'm just so happy with the result. On the blocks, (I was thinking) get in there, start properly, get up with them and try and stay ahead of as many people as possible. It's such a short race, you don't have time for error."
"I do something different every single time. Today I listened to music, sometimes I don't listen to music. Whatever I feel I need to do."

- Louise WATKIN (GBR) - silver

For further information, please visit http://www.paralympic.org. To watch live action and videos on demand of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and subscribe to ParalympicSport.TV, please go to www.youtube.com/ParalympicSportTV. Also, you may follow the Paralympic Movement on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ParalympicGames or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/paralympic.