Dockery shows grit to put setback behind her

The Irish team put the controversy at home behind them impressively and the major success stories yesterday were from the boccia arena, where Johnny Cronin and Gay Shelley both made it through to the individual semi-finals, and wheelchair athlete Patrice Dockery. Dockery was disqualified from Sunday's 800 metre final after a crash, but overcame the upset with a superb 1,500m heat early yesterday morning. After a traumatic night, she finished second in her race and was glad to have been able to put the earlier experience behind her.

"Last night was a very long night for me," she said. "I only got two hours sleep. That's a really good performance for me, I'm really, really happy with it. I used my head well."

After studying videos of the 800m race Dockery reiterated her belief that the she was not to blame for the crash that caused the final to be re-run. "It was clearly not my fault," she insisted.

Unfortunately there was little joy for Mary Rice as her Paralympic campaign began in earnest. The Belfast athlete, who watched her sister Sharon come seventh in the 100m yesterday, failed to find the performance that would land her in the medals but she recorded a season's best and finished fifth.

It was a similar story for Laoisman Garrett Culliton. The wheelchair athlete threw 12.58 metres in the discus. That left him in sixth spot overall, but the disqualification of Latvia's Aigars Apinis moved the 30-yearold up the rankings to fifth.

Meanwhile, a team of Cambodian landmine victims said they would lead an international protest against the axing of volleyball from the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.

The decision has devastated Cambodia's 11-strong Paralympic squad, made up entirely of volleyball players and all but one of whom have lost limbs to landmine explosions.

The Cambodian team said the decision would set back the cause of landmine rehabilitation in the world's war-torn nations. Other volleyball nations threw their weight behind Cambodia's bid to overturn the decision, which was announced yesterday. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said standing volleyball was being dropped because it was not played in enough countries.