Face savers

---

THE PARALYMPICS came to an end in Beijing yesterday with Egypt finishing in a respectable 29th place, a result which helped make some amends for the meek Olympic showing a month earlier.

Egypt picked up four gold, four silver and four bronze medals, as opposed to the lowly bronze medal the country collected in the Summer Games in the Chinese capital.

Despite the stellar performance, Egypt's Paralympians did not do as well as in Athens four years ago when they finished in 24th place with 23 medals.

Nor was Egypt the best Arab Paralympic country; that distinction went to Tunisia which finished in 15th place with 21 medals.

All of Egypt's Paralympic medals this year were garnered from just two sports, weightlifting and the javelin. In the process, we set three world weightlifting records. Egypt's biggest star was Sherif Othman (photo) who set the world and Paralympic records three consecutive times to win the gold medal in the men's 56kg powerlifting event.

Fatma Omar and Heba Said set world records in women's powerlifting, 52kg and 82.5kg.

China came atop the Paralympic table with 211 medals, followed by Great Britain with 102 and the US with 99.

More than 4,000 disabled athletes from 148 countries took part in these 13th Paralympics in which two million tickets were sold during the tournament's 12 days.

photo:AFP