体坛英语新闻：U.S. wheelchair rugby team wins Canada Cup in pre-Paralympic friendly

VANCOUVER, June 23 (Xinhua) -- The American wheelchair rugby team served notice they are still the team to beat at the upcoming Paralympics as the world champions got by the host Canadians 53-51 Saturday to win the fifth Canada Cup competition in Vancouver.

In the gold medal game of a tournament in the suburb city of Richmond that featured the world's top eight teams, all of whom have qualified for the London Paralympics, Andy Cohn scored 14 goals for the Americans who took advantage of 10 Canadian turnovers.

With the Americans having won four of the five Canada Cup competitions since the biennial event started in 2004, veteran Chance Sumner said the team was in good shape to repeat as Paralympic champions after beating Australia for the gold medal in Beijing.

"It feels good (to win this tournament). But at the same time, my eyes are on the prize. London is the main goal and we're looking forward to it," the Colorado native told Xinhua. "It's a good tournament to check everybody. Everybody's running lines and seeing how things work. You know, I look for the intensity to pick up a bit in London."

Ian Chan, a mainstay on the Canadian team since the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, lamented turnovers cost his team the championship.

"Yeah, you know obviously it's disappointing coming so close to a gold medal win here. But you know I'm really proud of the guys in that we came back from a deficit and really gave our team a chance to win here," he said.

"We have to improve just on playing as a team. I think we tend to rotate our lineups a lot and we have such a deep bench, so as long as we're all playing together as a team and not losing a step when we change lines, then I think we'll be a force come London."

While the Americans largely kept the Canadians at bay in the second half, never letting the hosts get within one or two goals, the bronze medal game between Japan and Australia featured an epic comeback.

A day after beating the Americans 56-55, the Japanese kept the momentum going for much of the game in leading the Australians 52-50 with three minutes to go. Holding a 55-54 lead with the clock winding down, it wasn't to be as Ryley Batt scored a goal with just over two seconds in regulation to force overtime.

In the extra session, Australia, the Oceania champion, scored first and poured it on against a Japan team, the bronze medal winners in Beijing, who appeared to run out of gas in going down 63-59.

Batt, a 23-year-old who was born without legs and had surgery to separate his webbed fingers, led the Australians with 28 goals, while Chris Bond had 26.

Daisuke Ikezaki scored 41 for Japan and finished as the tournament's leading scorer with 172 goal.

"They (Japan) came out strong. They're such a good team and they came out with all guns blazing and they showed us what they can do," said Batt, who made his Paralympic debut in Athens as a 15-year-old.

"This tournament just shows that any team can win the Paralympics. Every team's in it, every team's training hard, and we just got to step it up and play to the best of our ability."

The New South Wales native added it's anybody's guess who will win in London.

"Who knows what to expect. This tournament just showed that every team's just going hard at it and they just worked out every game plan for every team. So the game plan, of course, is to win the gold, but we have to get to that gold medal game first."