World record denies Scott shot at gold (From Halesowen News)

World record denies Scott shot at gold

10:48am Sunday 2nd September 2012 in Sport

AN INCREDIBLE world-record breaking performance has denied Halesowen ’s Helen Scott a shot at Paralympic gold in the three kilometre tandem pursuit.

Scott and her team-mate Aileen McGlynn looked to have put themselves in a strong position with a time of three minutes 36.930 seconds in qualifying - a new personal best.

But New Zealand duo Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson then smashed the world record by almost five seconds and Ireland’s Catherine Walsh and Francine Meehan also went quicker.

Scott and McGlynn will now race for bronze against British team-mates Lora Turnham and Fiona Duncan this afternoon.

That should still be a thrilling spectacle but the prize on offer is not the one Scott and McGlynn – the reigning champion – would have hoped for.

Just as in Friday’s 1km time trial where they had to settle for silver, the pair looked smooth on their run and the time proved it as they dipped under the testing benchmark set earlier by Turnham and Duncan.

With just two teams to go, including the world champion duo of Walsh and Meehan, a berth in the gold medal race looked assured.

But nobody had counted on the New Zealanders.

Gray and Thompson’s previous best was almost a second slower than the British pair but they shaved an incredible seven seconds of it and five of the current world standard to set a time of 3.31.530.

Walsh and Meehan finished almost five seconds adrift in the heat but their mark of 3.36.453 was still enough to deny Scott and McGlynn, who will now race for bronze at around 2.40pm.