Battle of the room-mates drove Jones on to bronze in capital

By Paul Eddison, Sportsbeat

BEVERLEY Jones has revealed how watching her roommate at London 2012 Gemma Prescott win club throw bronze inspired her to collect a medal of the same colour in the discus.

The 37-year-old Jones had to wait until day six to take to the circle in the Olympic Stadium, her first appearance in the capital coming in the shot put where she finished seventh.

That was very much a warm up for the discus two days later and came three days after Prescott, who Jones shared a room with in the athletes' village, claimed bronze in the club throw.

Like a jealous teenager Jones was determined not to miss out and threw a season's best distance of 30.99m to claim Paralympic bronze - 18 months after she won world silver.

And Jones admitted to relaxing and enjoying the rest of the Games without any envious looks across the bedroom at Prescott's medal after she claimed one for herself.

"I am very happy indeed. The crowd support was fantastic. I did feel a bit of pressure but I knew I had to hold it together," said Jones.

"You have to switch it off as much as you can, you have to think about what you have been doing in your training. That's the most important thing. I learned a lot in my first event as well.

"The discus was more what I expected. The shot was a good taste of it to get ready for the discus and being in the stadium.

"When I did my lap of honour I saw my mum, my brother, my auntie and my niece. Unfortunately some of them had to go back straight after the final.

"And we had a great house in the village, I was in the same room as Gemma Prescott so we had a matching pair of medals. When she won a medal it made me want to get one as well."

Chinese duo Mi Na and Xu Qiuping effectively wrapped up gold and silver respectively with their first efforts - meaning Jones faced a tough battle to take bronze.

She trailed Ukrainian Viktorya Yasevych after two throws but moved into bronze medal position with an effort of 30.04m on her third attempt in the circle.

Yasevych simply couldn't get near it failing with her fourth attempt, throwing 29.79m with her fifth before falling foul of the judges again with her last effort.

Jones had bronze wrapped up going into her sixth and final throw but didn't hold back increasing her distance to 30.99m to finally win a Paralympic medal at the fourth time of asking.

She was a sprinter when she made her Games debut at Sydney 2000, finishing a best of fourth in the 100m, before switching to throwing where her fate was the same - until this summer of course.

"I used to be a sprinter but I had to change because of what was on at the Paralympics. They didn't have what I wanted to do," she added.

"That's why I had to change disciplines but in parts of my training I still do speed work so it hasn't completely gone from me."

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