Kiwi paralympians Phillipa Gray and Laura Thompson have bagged New Zealand’s third medal at the London 2012 games, securing bronze in the Women’s B 1km time trial.
The pair finished just two hundredths of a second ahead of fourth placed Great Britain after their coach, Brendon Cameron’s, decision to adopt a larger gear paid off down the final 500 metres of the race.
“We know our 500 is really good but at the time you've got no idea how fast you’re going, whether you’re creeping or flying so you just have to give it all you’ve got and hope it’s enough,” says Thompson.
The race is not even the riders’ key event and the medal has been described as the icing on the cake.
“We knew gold and silver were out of our league; they’ve been out of our league for a couple of years really, and we’re not kilo riders but we knew the bronze medal was a possibility. There were three tandems out there that could have taken it, so it pretty much came down to those last milliseconds,” Gray explains.
Gray and Thompson will be back out on Sunday in their favoured 3000m Pursuit.
3 News/Presser