Paralympians win gold

THE PNG Paralympic youth team has won two gold medals at the Australian Youth Paralympic Championships in Melbourne.
Despite very cold conditions in the Victorian capital, PNG team manageress Sofie Tuna said from Melbourne last night that all  PNG athletes performed   strongly.
“We won two gold medals today (Thursday), one through Joyleen Jeffrey in the ambulant 100m and the other through Chris Tatavue in the shot put,” a happy Tuna said.
 “Joyleen ran 15.14sec in the women’s U20 open division final and Chris threw 5.78m for a personal best and the gold.”
Weather conditions did not help competitors yesterday with several awarding ceremonies  postponed to today.
“It was about 8 C today and some of the  afternoon activities had to be put off but several of our other athletes also won medals,” Tuna said.
“We won medals in U14 shot put and long jump but results will be confirmed tomorrow (today).” 
PNG Paralympic president Bernard Chan was present at the championships and would no doubt be thrilled by the performances of the team.
The final day of competition is today and the  team arrives back in Port Moresby on Sunday.
The Australian Youth Paralympic Championships from Oct 5-11, involves disabled athletes from all Australian states and territories as well as teams from PNG, New Zealand and the United States.