Berry, Cronin and Grant excel

Another remarkable day of success yielded two gold medals for the Irish team in Sydney, taking the total number of golds to four. Mairead Berry, the team's marvellous swimmer, and the boccia pairing of Johnny Cronin and Margaret Grant were the outstanding figures of the day, their victories greeted with an outpouring of emotion in Olympic Park.

Berry was the first to strike, reversing the order of the 50 metres backstroke final, when she won a silver medal, by beating Spaniard Sara Carracelas in the 100 metres freestyle event.

The Coolock swimmer took the win in some style, slicing eight seconds off the world record as she finished in a time of two-minutes 43.67 seconds.

Berry didn't actually think she had won the race, suspecting that Carracelas had usurped her again. So intensely focused was she on her individual performance that she hadn't realised just how far ahead of the field she was.

"It's great, I can't really believe I won," she managed through tears after the race. "I thought she had me on the turn," she said. "I was concentrating so hard on my own race I didn't even know I'd won till I looked up."

She had nearly seven seconds for the realisation to sink in. The Spaniard was well beaten, her time of 3:00.46 inside the old record but well off the pace. Indeed, Virginia Hernandez of Mexico took silver.

Berry will try and secure a hat-trick of medals this morning when she goes in the 50 metres freestyle. In this sort of form she will take some beating.

"We'll have to see what happens," she said of the prospect. "For now, I'll just take one day at a time."

Berry had collected her medal in time to witness fellow Cerebral Palsy Sports Club of Ireland members Johnny Cronin and Margaret Grant win gold in the boccia's mixed pairs final.

"We did it," roared Cronin as he left the arena, welcoming the hugs of his tearful team-mates. Taking nothing away from the performance of Grant, equally spirited on the day, rarely has success been so well deserved. The charismatic 32-year-old has taken the Paralympic crowd by storm and has been the heart and soul of the Irish team.

German television spent much of the day filming a feature on the Corkman for a prime-time news bulletin, so popular has he become. After the heartbreak of losing out on an individual bronze medal earlier in the week, this was to be his day.

The final pitted the Irish against the Spanish duo of of Yolanda Martin and Santiago Pesquera. There are roughly 30 boccia players in Ireland, Spain has approximately 10,000 exponents of the sport. The odds weren't great.

In truth, it was a poor final, nerves affecting the accuracy and standard of all involved, but it was no less exciting than anything we have witnessed in boccia to date.

Ireland started badly, going 2-0 down by the halfway stage and it could have been more. Had the Spanish not been so profligate when presented with golden opportunities it could have been all over by the midway point.

Cronin and Grant rallied well and it was the Corkman who swung the match. A magnificent three-shot sequence, threading the balls through gaps that appeared not to be there, left it 3-2 to Ireland with just one end to play. They held on, extending the win to 5-2 with Spain already beaten, to claim the fourth gold medal of an outstanding Games.

"He deserves it so much," Cronins's delighted coach, Liam Harbinson, said after the final. "The whole crowd fell in love with Johnny from day one. If you'd seen him on Tuesday night, he was devastated. He never wanted to play boccia again. To come back and win a gold from that is amazing."

Grant too was ecstatic after the win. "There are no words to describe it," she said. "I'm just totally in shock. I was nervous out there, but even when we were behind I was confident. I just said `you can reach inside yourself and do it, as long as you keep enjoying the game.' We just kept the game going, kept focused and did it."

There was no euphoria for discus thrower Sean O'Grady, whose Paralympic exit was tinged with sadness. O'Grady announced his retirement from top-class competition shortly before the Games and hoped to leave on a high note, improving or equalling his bronze-medal achievement in Atlanta.

His best effort, 28.35 metres, was enough for fifth, two metres shy of a medal. It would have taken a massive personal best to challenge the leaders and on the day the 44year-old couldn't quite manage it. "I felt I was throwing well earlier in the week, but it's a different story going into a cauldron like that," said O'Grady, referring to Stadium Australia.

"I'm disappointed. But at least I competed reasonably well and got the chance to throw in the best stadium in the world."