The game is now in the 4th quarter, and the US is nursing a 7 point lead.

The turnovers went fast and furious both ways in the game, but the US dominated overall when it counted, and is the well-deserving winner of this game and these Games.

Raise a pint to our neighbours to the south, and these Games now count 2 of the 3 available medals to teams from the Americas Zone.

It's been a good Games with great hosts. Beijing is in the books with bronze for our team, and gold for Team USA.

Congrats to all!

Both Canadian referees saw work today, with Pierre-Alexandre Brière currently reffing the gold medal final between the USA and AUS. His father, Gilles Brière reffed the NZL-GER game that decided 5th place at the Paralympic Games.

The score in the gold medal match is currently 8-6 for the USA.

Well, now I'm annoyed.

The schedule I posted below came directly from ParalympicSport.tv, and my assumption was that the times listed were Beijing time, which I know is exactly 12 hours apart from my time here in EST.

From that, I thought I'd be watching the CAN-GBR bronze medal rugby game AFTER the CAN-AUS gold medal basketball game, and that's the info I sent out to people who had asked me... and that's also what time I planned to wake up the next morning, after so many days of middle-of-the-night watching.

However, when you take a look at our own posted schedule of the games, it's over already, and it would have played live here at 1:00 am EST, as it was scheduled for 1:00pm Beijing time.

The good news is that we won, and Canada are the proud winners of Paralympic Bronze medals at the 2008 Paralympic Games.

I hope to hear from the team athletes and staff soon - they are very happy to hear some of the support that has been coming for them from back home.

CONGRATULATIONS TEAM - looking forward to seeing those medals!

I've posted photos from our last three games to the CWSA's result page:

http://www.cwsa.ca/paralympics-2008.html

I'll make links from these small photos to larger ones tomorrow once I've put some sort of watermark on the large images.

All shots were taken by Kevin Bogetti-Smith.

Great shots Kevin!!!

Alman stips Whitey to take the last-goal opportunity over to the Australians, who score with 7.7 seconds left.... Canada brings it up to score the tying goal, but can't get through the Australian wall... call a time out with 0.6 seconds left, giving the Canadians one final throw in for the tie....

... which comes up short.

Win for Australia who will meet the US in the gold medal final.

Congratulations to the Aussies. We'll meet GB for Paralympic bronze.

Ryley sends a big pass in to the key, which is intercepted by Canada's 0.5 Jared Funk to send the game in to OVERTIME.

How do you spell EXCITEMENT?

With 6.2 seconds left on the clock, Team Canada gets what we hope will be the last goal. Australia takes a time out to see if they can set up a goal with the remaining time... we'll see soon...

Contact violation on Ryley Batt... he goes off to the sin bin.

1:30 minute left... will we run out the clock and take it to Overtime?

Canada possession, taking our final time-out, down by 1 with 2:10 left on the buzzer.... and Simard takes it in to tie the game at 36.

Our trios of 3s are going to have a few things to say about taking it to the Australians, and of course, their defensive partners are going to make it happen.

A very exciting 1st quarter from Beijing, with Canadians capitalizing on a turnover captured by Ian Chan, and scoring last in the quarter to put the canucks up 9-7 over the aussies.

There was some choppy play on the court, but the players were allowed to play their game without a lot of penalties called.

This is TENSE!

33-33 in the 4th quarter, Australian possession... 4 minutes left.

We need a turnover, and we need it NOW.

Regardless of what the commentators said repeatedly in the recently re-played NZL-GER pool match, the Kiwis will not be in the 5th/6th game tomorrow. They merely have the crossover games tomorrow, which pits them against the #4 team in the opposite pool, which will see them playing the Chinese. Meanwhile, the Japanese, who placed 3rd in Pool A will meet the Germans, who placed 4th in Pool B.

The winners of the NZL-CHN and the JPN-GER game will meet in the game for 5th, while the losers of those two games meet to decide 7th place at the Paralympic Games.

I've seen two different scores for the GB - GER game, so I won't post either of them. However, they did both agree that GB defeated their main European rivals, so I'll post a victory for the Union Jack team up on our results page.

Meanwhile, I'll catch a few zzz's before heading out to a tournament that starts in 6 hours. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to a Stingers BBQ afterwards in North Gower, despite the calls for rain.

Later!

In the game held earlier today in Beijing, Japan defeated China handily enough to secure 3rd place in Pool A. The Americans are still holding on to their margin of 3 to 4 goals in the remaining Pool A game. Team Canada needs some turnovers, but either opponent we'd meet next will be strong, so I'm not too concerned with the result of this game.

When some of the players were exchanging some smack on the court, we can only guess what was going on. We hear a little bit of the crowd noise, but not much of the audio at court level. It would be great if we could both hear as well as see the game.

Oh, and James - please hand your colleague our player pronounciation guide that I sent you. :)

Turnovers went in both directions for the rest of the quarter, often with key plays from Dave Willsie, and the Americans scored last goal to maintain their 3-point goal margin.

The audio mics of the two announcers makes it seem as if they are in two sepearate worlds, but the audio seemed to get clearer as the game went on.

I'm reminded that I sent something out to people a few weeks ago that I haven't echoed in here. Well-wishers to the Canadian National Team can reach Team Canada's rugby athletes and staff in Beijing by using this e-mail address that I've set up:

team-canada-rugby -AT- cwsa.ca

Obviously, you'll have to substitute the word -AT- for an @ symbol... but spelling it that way makes it harder for the bots to pick up the address.

The teams trade a few goals, with the outcome of the game now having been long established.

Our 2nd pool game at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games is now a wrap, with Team Canada defeating the very popular host Chinese team by a final score of 57 - 25.

Good work Team Canada!!!

51-21 for Canada now with about 4 minutes remaining. Wearing black for Canada right now are: Hickling - Whitehead - Hirschfield - Funk.

Team Canada makes a substitution with the final two minutes left, with the 3 - 2 - 1.5 - 1.5 lineup of Whitehead - Willsie - Simard - Schmütz taking it to the buzzer...

The quarter finishes 43-17 for Canada.

The announcers made a couple of good points just now, as they noted how talented the Chinese have become with such a short time in the sport, with some impressive efforts and skill sets being evident on the court. They would certainly gain a lot of knowledge by playing both as a team more often internationally and also for a some of their players to play in an international league that will expose them to a higher, and more regular variety of higher-level competitors than what they would find domestically. Let's hope they reach out. I'm sure they'd find some help available.

The score is now 45-18 with about 7 minutes remaining in the game.

Canada is now running with G - LKD - Hirschy - E with China countering with ZILIN Pan (3.5) - HAN, Guifei (3.0) - YU, Zhongtao (1.0) - SHAO Dequan (1.0).

Say got spun and went down, but on the good side, he called a timeout on his way down, and his last name was finally heard... or at least a close approximation... nice improvement - thanks!

You know, the announcers could just call our #9 "Say"... ;)

Starting the 3rd quarter, we see both teams using their female players, with both Erika SCHMÜTZ (CAN) and ZHANG Wenli (CHN) on the floor at the same time, which is a first at the Paralympic Games.

Team Canada is using their Ontario line of Whitey-Willsie-Crone-Schmütz, with subs being called after 4 minutes of play, and the score being 34-15 in favour of the Canadians.

19-10 for Canada now in the 2nd quarter, with about 4 and a half minutes remaining in the quarter. A new shift of players is out now, and I believe that all players have now been in this game.

Right now, we're playing with Chan - Willsie - Luangkhamdeng (Loo-ong' calm-deng for the announcer who, as she said, just butchered his name) - and Hirschfield.

We've now doubled the score and made it 24-12...

... and closed off the half scoring the last goal with about 7 seconds left to make it 27-13. China had a good drive for the goal, but the Canadian defence was ready for them and stopped them in time.

The other day I had mentioned a few other rugby blogs of note.

To that list, I'd add that of my colleague, John Bishop, who is the VP Communications for the IWRF.

Justin Frishberg, from the GB team has now started up his own blog, and since I had promised to post it's address, here you go... In case you missed it earlier, Kiwi captain Dan Buckingham's blog is only a click away.

Those of you who are looking for some stats previews of tomorrows games can absorb your fill of information, both interesting and extraneous, through the links on this page of the BOCOG site.

~That is all~

Nice transition on Paralympic TV, with a very exciting rugby game being followed by the CAN - AUS women's basketball game.

Go Neuf, Goose and Team Canada!!!

GB is running with - Collins (2.5) - Ash (the new 2.0) - Barrow (2.0) - Roberts (1.5)
and NZL is countering now with a 3 - 2 - 2 - 1 lineup.

38-36 GB with 1 minute left...

Overly long pass runs well past Klinkhamer... who was not happy...

32 seconds left... Buckingham ties it up!

11 seconds to go... GB trying to score... COLLINS GETS THROUGH!

Game over!

GB wins the very critical #4 vs #5 pool match, and is in a very strong position, with two remaining games to play in their pool.

At any wheelchair rugby tournament with 8 teams involved, the pool match game between those seeded 2nd and 3rd in their pools are the most intensely fought, and the most eagerly looked forward to.

Unlike many sports, rugby advances the top-2 teams in each pool to the medal rounds, and delegates the bottom two ranked teams in each pool to challenge only for 5th place.

This sort of format makes this game the turning point for many national team programs. Currently, the Brits are ranked 4th, and the Kiwis 5th, but the with the history of success on the New Zealand side, a win by GB (and they're still holding their 2-goal margin) would be an upset in many minds.

GB 29 - 27
in the 4th quarter...

62-59 CAN with 3.3 seconds left...

GER with 1 last attempt...

failed...

CAN wins by 3!

Congratulations to the Canadian men's wheelchair basketball team!

Anderson with 29 points

60-57 CAN

less than 1 minute left...

48-46 CAN

GER 43 - CAN 42

at the end of the 3rd Quarter.

41-34 ...

43-34 ...

Anderson with the ball...

foul on #14 for GER...

For the rugby fans who are also fans of wheelchair basketball, we have a few people in at the venue who can give us some score updates (Dispaltro, Frost and Whitehead).

The score at half time is 26-23 for GER over CAN.

Update: GER 39 - CAN 34 (3:03 left in the 3rd)

On the CWSA web site, you'll soon see a series of newspaper articles linked near the bottom of the page, alongside the lists of referees and classifiers who will be working at the Games.

I'll likely be adding more sections like that, especially when the rugby games start in a few days.

Meanwhile, I came across an interesting blog by NZL 3.0 - Dan Buckingham, which you might find interesting....

There we go... the story links are now posted. I also came across a story that mentioned that GB's Justin Frishberg would also be writing a Beijing blog, and I'll post the link up in here when he starts it.

The Canadian Team has now settled in safely to the Athletes Village, after a trouble free flight. The only problem was one missing bag, which has since shown up. The team quite likes the look and feel of the Athletes Village, which is far superior to the Athens facility in 2004.

Most of our team members were already in China earlier this year, and at this point, they are just acclimatizing and “getting the lay of the land.” They are now wrapping up the details and making sure that they have everything that is needed to start our competition on the 12th.

The CPC is doing a great job and they’re doing everything they possibly can to support our team. We’re still missing some phones, but they’re working on it, along with our venue freezer and the egg crate foam mattresses for the players.

The players all worked on their chairs today with Stéphan 'Magic Hammer' Charbonneau, our Equipment Manager... Steph had a very busy day!

We still don't have the final rosters of all the teams, but our best guess as to the teams are outlined on our Paralympics Page. Of course, both Australia and Germany will have to drop one player from the posted lists (which are from their roster that competed at the 2008 Canada Cup), as their roster will only be 11 players.

The only teams to have 12 players will be ourselves, the Brits, and the Chinese, who all have female players on their rosters. Coincidentally enough, they are all 1.5 classified players (#4-CAN Erika Schmütz, #4-GBR Josie Pearson, and #5-CHN ZHANG, Wenli).

Starting on September 12th, we'll be playing one game a day for three days in our pool, which will see us playing Japan, China, and the United States. Every game is crucial, and will be played with a high degree of focus and respect, as our opponents will also be well-prepared. Crossover games will be played on the 4th day and finals on the 5th and final day, September 16th.

It's worth noting that there is a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and EST, and that they are AHEAD of us, so while it's around 1pm here in Ottawa on Tuesday, it's now around 1am on Wednesday morning in Beijing.

That's all for now - more coming tomorrow!