Wheelchair racers finally get silvers

The Australian women's 4x400m wheelchair relay team has finally received their silver medals after being forced to wait 12 hours for a double protest decision.

After going to bed not knowing what colour medal they'd won, the Australian women's 4x400m wheelchair relay team has finally claimed silver following a disqualification controversy at the Paralympics.

Angie Ballard, Madison de Rozario, Jemima Moore and Christie Dawes crossed the line behind China and the United States in their T54 class final in Rio on Thursday night but were disqualified for straying out of their lane.

After lodging an official protest, the Aussies were reinstated with the silver after the US team was disqualified for forcing them off their path.

The US then protested and a final decision wasn't made by the International Paralympic Committee until Friday morning.

Dawes said the team had to return to the athletes village not knowing the outcome of the race which made for a restless night's sleep.

"We had to put our medal ceremony tracksuit on this morning not actually knowing whether we were going to get a medal or not," she said.

"We were all a bit philosophical but it was pretty stressful last night."

In the end the US was disqualified, as was Turkey for a separate indiscretion, which meant no bronze was awarded.

But with a medal around her neck, Dawes had no hard feelings.

"No-one did anything wrong or malicious" she said.

"It was an error on the part of the Americans that they didn't interpret the rules properly and so that was their downfall."


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Source: AAP



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