Swimmers raise China's Paralympic gold to 46

LONDON - Chinese swimmers surged to collect five gold medals at the London Paralympics on Monday, raising China's gold tally to 46 after Day 5 competitions.

China, which clinched 89 golds to be No. 1 at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics, are topping the London tally with 46 gold, 31 silver and 35 bronze medals, followed by hosts Britain with 19-25-19, Russia 16-20-13, Australia 16-13-19, Ukraine 15-12-15 and the United States 12-11-17.

Thanks to the swimmers' stunning performance, China garnered 11 golds on Monday to consolidate their leading position.

The Chinese swimmers also broke four world records on Monday.

In the five days' competitions, the Chinese swimmers have collected 13 gold medals, the number of which is equal to their total golds taken at the Beijing Paralympics.

In the following five matchdays of swimming, the Chinese swimmers are expected to make more surprises.

China coach Zhang Honggu told Xinhua that some young Paralympic debutants' great performance was one of the reasons for China's dominance in the pool.

He took the 15-year-old Yang Yang as an example. Yang set another world record in the men's 100m freestyle-S2 on Monday. He swam a time of two minutes and 3.71 seconds to win the gold. Yang also holds the world record for the 200m freestyle-S2, which he won on Saturday.

"Some veterans also gave stable performance, such as Du Jianping," Zhang noted.

Attributing the success to the effectiveness of the systematic training and the high spirit and confidence of the swimmers themselves, Zhang said,"China developed fast these years and the government and people attach great importance to the disabled people, which guarantees high-level systematic training for all the para-athletes."

"All our para-athletes train hard and they are eager to show their power in high-level competitions. They are very confident," he added.

The last gold of Day 5 went to Birgit Kober from Germany in the women's javelin throw - 33/34/52/53. Nicknamed 'Tiger' by her mother, Kober also broke the world record, with a throw of 27.03 meters.

Iliesa Delana won Fiji's first gold at the Paralympics in the men's high jump-F42.

Ireland's Michael McKillop has managed to do the middle-distance-double, after winning gold in the men's 1,500m-T37. The 22-year-old also retained his title in the 800m-T37 on Saturday night.

Women's table tennis favorite Natalia Partyka won the gold in the singles-Class 10. Her gold took Poland's gold tally to five, after she beat China's Yang Qian in five sets.