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RIO PARALYMPICS 2016: SCOTT MARTLEW

September 16, 2016

Scott Martlew has competed his Rio Paralympic Dream with an eighth place finish in the A Final.

Scott Martlew in Rio

New Zealand paddler Scott Martlew gave his all in the KL3 200m final last night, clocking his fastest time of the competition in 43.921secs, 4.111secs behind the winner.

The KL3 final was the fastest of the day, with the three podium places very tightly contested. Gold medalist Ukrainian Yemelianov beat Tom Kierey (Germany) by just 0.1 seconds. Caio Ribeiro de Carvalho (BRA) received a thunderous cheer from his home crowd when it was announced that he had grabbed bronze medal.

Martlew was called up for the New Zealand Paralympic team at the very last minute, following the Russian suspension. Making the A final is an excellent result for this promising athlete on his Olympic debut.

I'm very happy with how I've performed over the last couple of days, with each race being faster than the last. I'm so glad this dream became reality and I've been able to share this journey with you all.
Scott Martlew

The future of paracanoeing in NZ looks bright. Martlew being amongst the youngest paralympian paddlers, we hope he will be inspired to compete at the Paralympics Tokyo in 2020, where a Va'a (Waka Ama) competition is expected to be added – watch out world!