• London Paralympics 2012

Weir wins fourth Paralympic gold in marathon

David Weir has been a star of the Paralympics © Getty Images

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David Weir won his fourth gold medal at the London Paralympics on Sunday, crossing the line first in the men's T54 wheelchair marathon.

Weir had already lit up the Olympic Stadium by winning the 800m, 1500m and 5000m hat-trick earlier in the Games. However, he moved outside to The Mall on Sunday to make it a golden quartet.

Roared on by thousands of supporters Weir - who admitted he felt exhausted prior to the race - dragged his body through the most gruelling of his four disciplines to match compatriot Sarah Storey's medal haul.

Marcel Hug was the greatest threat to Weir's bid for T54 marathon gold, but he had enough in reserve to edge out his rival by a single second for victory in a time of 1:30.20. Weir may now retire from Paralympic sport.

"It's a dream come true," he told Channel 4. "Obviously I dreamt about winning all my races but it was going to be a tough order. I really had to dig deep. I did have lots of dreams of winning four gold medals but I think everybody has those dreams. I knew I was capable of doing it.

"The reason I say I only want one gold is because I don't want to put myself under pressure. I want to go into every race not feeling pressured. To tell you the truth, every race I did in that stadium I didn't feel under pressure because the crowd was behind you if you won, lost or anything."

The trademark roar from the 'Weirwolf' did not happen as he crossed the line on Sunday, but he revealed that the reason was he did not know he had won.

"I didn't even know where the finishing line was. That's why I didn't celebrate. There's two lines: the start line and the finishing line. Usually we have a tape, so I was carrying on through. If I looked a little bit moody across the line it's because I didn't know where the line was. I didn't know how close they were so I just had to carry on pushing."

Weir's latest triumph, combined with a silver medal for Shelly Woods, means Britain have won 120 medals at the Games. That tally is 17 higher than the original target.

However, Team GB are set to finish third in the overall medal table behind China and Russia, the latter of whom have won one more gold medal than the host nation. It had been GB's target to maintain second position in the table, which is where they finished in Beijing four years ago.

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