LONDON OLYMPICS Two Lynn News sports awards winners go for glory

Published on Thursday 28 June 2012 15:36

WE?RE bidding for glory at the London Olympics. That?s the target for two former Lynn News Sports Awards winners, Barbara Parker and Jody Cundy.

And they will have a lot of local following during this summer?s Games as both still have strong West Norfolk connections.

Parker, who has been relaxing with her family at Pott Row this week, is lined up for an athletics double having gained automatic selection for the 5,000m and also having achieved the qualifying standard for the 3,000m steeplechase. The official confirmation of the Team GB athletics team is expected to be announced on Tuesday.

As a 15-year-old, Parker was our Sportswoman of the Year in 1998 when she also picked up a Lynn News Superkids award for her athletics achievements with Springwood High School, Norfolk and England. She went on to claim the sports award two years later, again in 2002 and also in 2004.

Meanwhile, in the Paralympics, Cundy has already been named in the 18-strong Para-cycling team ? to the delight of his family and friends at Walpole St Andrew. Cundy, who won two golds at the Beijing Games, picked up our Lynn News Courage in Sport award in 1989 and again in 1994.

Parker, now 29, is based in the USA at Atlanta, with her husband and coach Sean Burris. They met at Florida State University where Barbara completed a degree in sports exercise and sociology in 2007.

A year later she was jetting round the world for the Beijing Games where she finished 12th in the heats of the 3,000m steeplechase.

But even then she was thinking ahead to 2012 and told the Lynn News she expected to be at her peak for the London Olympics.

And at the beginning of June she had the run of her life with a new British record of 9mins 24.24 to finish fourth in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Prefontaine Classic, a Diamond League meeting in Eugene, Oregon. Parker eclipsed Helen Clitheroe?s four-year-old mark of 9mins 29.14, set at the Beijing Olympics.

She is now ranked seventh in the world and having already set an Olympic qualifying standard in the event, decided to run in only the 5,000m at the UK Athletics Trials in Birmingham at the weekend. It paid off as Parker finished second to Jo Pavey in a close race - and she just needed to finish in the top two for automatic selection.

Now she can only wait for the announcement of the GB team, with fingers crossed for selection in both the steeplechase and the 5,000m.

Her main target will be the steeplechase where she is looking not just to reach the final but to get on the rostrum.

Before then, Parker is keeping fit locally and she intends to run in the Diamond League meeting in Paris next Friday - and hopefully also to find time and watch the Olympic Torch relay pass through West Norfolk on Wednesday.

She is back home at Pott Row with mum Carol until the London Games and Tweeted on her website this week: ?Note to self: Running on farm tracks is not like running on the flat fast river trail back in Atlanta. Hit the road and I was rolling.?

At this week?s Paralympics press conference, Cundy said: ?I feel honoured to be selected for my fifth Paralympics which ultimately is going to be the most important and special as it is on home soil.

?I can?t wait to defend my Paralympic titles and race in front of a partisan crowd as part of the strongest team that Paralympics GB has ever sent to a Paralympic Games.

?I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me along the way and I look forward to your continued support. Bring on London!?

The Para-Cycling team brought home 20 medals from Beijing to finish top of their sport?s medal table, and the sport has brought home multiple international medals from road and track since 2008, so Paralympic selectors are confident that the team will perform once again when they take to the boards at the Olympic Park is just over 60 days? time.

Cundy, who was awarded the MBE in the New Year Honours List in 2009, won gold medals for swimming at the paralympics in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. He switched to cycling in 2007 and scooped those two golds at the Beijing games.

Source: http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/london-olympics-two-lynn-news-sports-awards-winners-go-for-glory-1-4000472

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