Ryley Batt has led the Australian wheelchair rugby team to gold in a clean sweep of the London Paralympic games, scoring a massive 161 times in the process.
The Australian Wheelchair Rugby League team won all 20 quarters they played in London and helped take Australia to fifth on the overall medal tally.
Universally recognised as one of the world’s best wheelchair rugby players, the 23-year-old Port Macquarie local was born without legs and required surgery to separate his fingers from each other. Until the age of 12, he preferred to ride around on a skateboard, only moving to a wheel chair after seeing a wheelchair rugby demonstration at school.
This was Batt’s third Paralympic experience, having represented Australia as the youngest ever wheelchair rugby Paralympian at just 15in the 2004 Athens Games and winning silver at Beijing in 2008.
Batt will be joined by Olympic medallist James Magnussen and fellow Paralympian Janel Manns in a street parade through the Port Macquarie CBD on Saturday, September 15.
The street parade, likely to begin around noon, will start from the Corner of William and Horton streets with the athletes making their way down Horton Street to the Town Green in a cavalcade of cars supported by local community bands and sporting groups. Planning for the event continues and updates will be provided on Council’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pmhc2444. The Australian wheelchair rugby team started its winning streak last Wednesday, with a 64-52 victory against Beijing bronze medallists, Canada.
“The team helped me out so much, that they just made my work look really easy,” Batt said.
On Thursday, Australia beat Sweden 60-47, with Batt scoring 30 times during the match, taking Australia to the semi finals against Japan.
Before the match against Japan, Batt said the Australians couldn’t afford to worry.
“We’ve still got to go out there and keep playing how we’ve been playing and to not worry about individual players,” Batt said.
“It’s a team sport, so at the end of the day as long as we score more points than them, we’ll win.”
In the semi finals on Saturday, Australia defeated Japan 59-45.RyleyBatt continued his impressive tournament with another 27 goals.
“To be the champions, you have to beat the champions,” Batt said .
“We’ve been in this position before, so we are aware that our job isn’t done yet.
“We have got one more game and we are going to come out swinging.”
In the gold medal match against Canada on Sunday, the Australians always looked in control and at half time had a 13-point advantage following two successful first half periods.The third and fourth quarter were also both won by the Australians, with the final score 66-51. Batt ended his impressive tournament with 37 more points to take his tally to a remarkable 161 in the five matches he played.
Early mistakes from a number of experienced Canadian players didn’t help their cause, with Batt and team mate, Paralympics debutante Chris Bond, continuing their brilliant partnership that was present throughout the competition.
USA took the bronze medal following a relatively comfortable encounter against Japan, in which they came out winning 53-43.
Overall, Australia came in fifth in the Paralympic medal tally, just a silver medal behind the Ukraine. Dubbed the most successful Paralympic team yet, Australia secured 32 gold, 23 silver and 28 bronze medals. China topped the medal tally with more than double the medals of any other team.
