Beijing bound Weir in blistering form

8:21am Thursday 15th May 2008

Wallington's Olympic wheel-chair racer David Weir warmed up for an exhibition 5,000m race on the Olympic track in Beijing on Friday with an impressive weekend of results.

At Stoke Mandeville on Saturday, Weir came close to the 800m world record - the only best on the track he has not broken from 200m up to 5,000m.

A day later, Weir produced two impressive gold medal-winning displays in the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester.

First, he set a storming pace in the 1,500m to build up an early lead, before easing to a championship record of three minutes 14.87 seconds, holding off the challenge from Thailand's Prawat Wahorum.

In the final event of the day, the 400m, Weir pushed on in the closing stages to take victory from China's Lixin Zhang in 48.57.

He has the Paralympic qualifying time for all distances from 400 to 5,000m but has yet to decide which of the five track distances - on top of the marathon - he will tackle in Beijing later in the year.

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