BARELY two years after chancing upon a talent search for Paralympic prospects, Jo Butterfield seized global gold at the IPC world championships in Doha last night. The 36-year-old from Glasgow, left paralysed following a spinal tumour, set a championship best of 21.44m with her third attempt in the F51 club throw to repel the challenge of American rival Rachael Morrison.
The pair will now square off once more in the discus on Tuesday. 12 months out from the greatest challenge of them all, Butterfield has every opportunity to enhance her burgeoning status. “I’d be happy with one medal,” she said. “But two would be fantastic, especially thinking about Rio.”
Maria Lyle claimed a European record in the T35 200 metres but it was only enough to secure silver for the 15-year-old from East Lothian as Australian rival Isis Holt, one year her junior, delivered the quickest race of all-time in 28.57 seconds. They will have a re-match over 100m this week. “It was very close coming around the bend so that gives me a lot of confidence,” she said.
The Scot, who has cerebral palsy, will not shirk the duel, scribbling notes on her hands as a reminder of her motivational mantras. “I have the message ‘Fear into action’ and ABC which reminds me of the things I have to do to stop myself getting anxious. Then I have ‘drive, climb, fly’ which is for different parts of the race.”
Sammi Kinghorn couldn’t double her medal tally as she came fifth in the T53 100m. While Libby Clegg needs improvements in today’s T12 200m final after coming second in her semi as Cuba’s Omara Durand snared the world record. “We didn’t get out of the blocks as well as we would have liked to have done,” the Commonwealth champion said. Elsewhere, David Weir won silver in the T54 1500m.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here