ATHENS, Sept. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Australian Kurt Fearnley and his wheelchair led all the way to the 12 kilometer turnpoint and neverlooked back en route to winning the men's marathon T54 race in the Athens Paralympic Games here on Sunday.

    Fearnley clocked a winning time of one hour 25 minutes and 37 seconds.

    Canada's Kelly Smith was delighted to take the silver medal in 1:29:39, followed by Tomasz Hamerlak of Poland.

    The Polish athlete won the final sprint to capture the bronze medal in 1:31:01, just two seconds ahead of Aaron Gordian of Mexico.

    The Canadian silver medalist recognized that Fearnley was very strong on the hills and that this original marathon course was just tailor-made for the Australian.

    When the break was made he simply followed his own race plan and held on to his position.

    Several well known athletes had great difficulty with the course. Joel Jeannot of France, winner of the men's 10,000m earlier this week, finished 5th in 1:31:42.

    Another great name in wheel chair racing Ernst Van Dyk of SouthAfrica found himself 18th among the 23 finishers. Van Dyk had earlier won silver medals in the 800m and 1,500m together with a bronze in the 5,000m.

    Conditions were much better than for the Olympic marathon as the races started at 8:00 in the morning. Temperatures were hovering around 22 Celsius although the humidity was 78%.

    The medical crew were well prepared with a dozen ambulatory beds complete with intravenous bags in case of heat exhaustion.

    The Japanese dominated the women's T54 race as Kazu Hatanaka captured the gold medal in 1:49:26 and her teammate Wakako Tsuchida was the second in 1:50:13.

    Tsuchida, who won the 5,000m gold medal on September 18th, had to fight off a late sprint from Cheri Blauwet of the United Stateswho came within two seconds of the Japanese racer.

    It was nearly the same story in the men's T52 race as ToshihiroTakada of Japan won the race in a new Paralympic best performance of 2:00:02.

    Tomasz Geierspichler of Austria, holder of the fastest time ever by a T52 class wheelchair racer,was second in 2:06:10, followed by Clayton Gerein of Canada in the bronze spot in 2:14:26.     

    The 30-year-old Cerein set a Paralympic record to win the gold medal some 12 years ago in the Barcelona Paralympic Games.

    A total of 19 brave starter set off in men's T13 race, a marathon race for blind athletes, and when it was done Ildar Pomykalov of Russia turned out the winner in 2:38:45.

    The silver medalist was Roy Daniel of Austria with 3:32 behind and Lin Bass scored his personal best of 2:43:55 to became the third place winner. Enditem