Canada's Golden Double

By Paul Carter

Wheelchair racer Shelly Woods had to make do with a double second place as she finished behind Canadian Diane Roy in both the Tyne Tunnel 2k International (TT2K), and the Great North Run.

In the TT2K, Woods could do little to match the downhill speed of Roy, who finished in 5:19.7, almost 45 seconds ahead of her rival.

Billed as the world’s fastest wheelchair race, The TT2K begins with a 100m sprint to the entrance of the tunnel, and is then followed by a steep downhill run, where racers can reach speeds of almost 50mph.

The second part of the race is a 1km climb to the finish line.

Roy reached the downhill section first, and her pace opened up a gap that Woods was unable to make up on the homeward climb.

“I never touch my brakes and just go fast – 62kph, I think,” said Roy. “It was fun, but the climb was very tough. I could hardly lift my arm to salute as I crossed the finish line.”

Woods conceded that her downhill section let her down.

“I am always a bit slower down the hill,” she said. “My strength is my climbing and I did make up a lot of ground, passing Francesca [Porcellato] about halfway up, but Diane just got too far ahead on the downhill.”

In the men’s race, Canadian Josh Cassidy came home first in 4:24.2, ahead of Germany’s Ralph Brunner in 4:38.4.

Cassidy said: “I knew if I got a good start and could hit a higher downhill speed [than last year], I could strike back at heavier athletes on the uphill. I did it and I can say I won one of the toughest races of my life.”

Great Britain’s Mickey Bushell, who finished sixth, said: “It’s pretty scary doing those kinds of speeds in your race chair. You have to be totally focused. But the uphill is the killer. I have never felt pain in my arms like it, but that is what makes this race so popular. That and the unique venue.”

Three days later, in the Great North Run, Shelly Woods narrowly missed defending her title in a dramatic finale to the women’s race.

Woods, from Blackpool, twice a winner of the half-marathon event, in 2005 and 2007, was again beaten by Diane Roy, this time on the line in a thrilling sprint finish.

The two racers had tracked each other in cat-and-mouse fashion for almost the entire 13-mile distance, with neither prepared to make a break early on.

It was Woods who finally made the move and looked to have done enough to hold on, but Roy came back hard at the double-Paralympic medallist to snatch a narrow victory on the line in a time of 51 minutes and 18 seconds.

Francesca Porcellato of Italy was third.

“We were neck and neck for most of the race, and I knew it would come down to a sprint,” said Woods. “She was just the better woman on the day.”

There was to be no heartbreak this time for Roy, who initially won gold in the T54 5,000m at the Paralympics before seeing the result overturned after a dramatic crash, and having to settle for silver in the re-run.

Woods will now turn her attention to the New York Marathon on 2 November, where she will be hoping to go one better than last year, where she finished in second place behind Edith Hunkeler of Switzerland.

The Great North Run marked a double-double success for Canada, which also claimed victory in the men’s wheelchair race.

Josh Cassidy had a much easier time of things, finishing with almost a minute to spare over his nearest competitors in a race missing many of the event’s big hitters such as Kurt Fearnley and Ernst van Dyk.

Cassidy clocked up a time of 44:10, ahead of 2006 runner-up Ralph Brunner, who finished in 45:03.

It meant that the results for the top two in both the men’s and women’s races in the Great North Run matched those in the TT2K.