The 21-year-old from Charlton Down in Dorset, who claimed two silver medals earlier in the week with second place finishes in both the 800 and 1500m T36 finals, went one better as he dominated the competition to claim victory in a season's best of 56.93sec.

Artem Arefyev of Russia, who defeated Blake in his previous two finals, finished a distant second in 58.03 while Roman Pavlyk of Ukraine claimed bronze in 58.08.

"The 400m was really my bonus event coming into these Championships so to not only medal but become world champion in it is an amazing feeling," Blake told insideworldparasport.

"I have to keep working hard and improve.

"I particularly need to improve my endurance but to come away with three medals at my first World Championships feels unbelievable."

Blake's gold medal was not the only world title Britain picked up on the penultimate day of competition in Christchurch as Bethany Woodward also claimed victory in a new lifetime best of 1min 09.21sec in the 400m T37 to add to the bronze medal she won in the T35-38 4 x 100m relay.

The Lee Valley-based 18-year-old ran a tactically perfect race to clock her first ever sub-70 second performance with Maryna Snisar of Ukraine taking silver in 1:09.94 and Russia's Anastasiya Ovsyannikova claiming bronze in 1:10.26.



"I'm very emotional," admitted Woodward (pictured).

"The wind was quite difficult as I came around the bend but I really had no concept of how tough it was out there other than the fact that the rain was refreshing.

"The Russian [Ovsyannikova] was my main threat but I caught her just before the bend.

"I'd watched her race in the heats and I knew she'd be strong in the final 200m so I'd talked it through with my coach Jonas; we were second guessing a bit on tactics but we got it right.

"I'd hoped to win a medal in the 400m.

"That's given me so much confidence going into my preparation for London.

"I know I've performed here and it's made me realise I can perform in 2012 too."

In Britain's final medal winning performance of the day, David Devine claimed bronze in the men's 800m T12 final as he finished behind Abderrahim Zhiou of Tunisia and Ignacio Avila of Spain respectively.

"I'm a little bit disappointed as I went out there hoping to get the gold but I'm still really pleased to be going home with a world championship bronze medal," said Devine.

Also competing in this morning's finals, Jade Jones coached by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and her husband her husband Ian Thompson, completed her tough three event World Championships programme with a seventh place finish in the 400m T54 in 1:04.74.

The 15-year-old from Middlesbrough, one of the youngest athletes in the competition, was relieved to complete her busy schedule but pleased to have progressed successfully through to the last eight in each race.

"It's been a good experience but it's been hard," Jones admitted.

"I didn't have huge expectations coming into the competition, it was just great to get here, but it was definitely an achievement to get through to the finals and I'm now motivated to train even harder.

"I've done well and I'm happy."

Overall, Britain now has 12 golds, nine silvers and 17 bronzes from the Championships with only the marathon events to come tomorrow.

Triple world champion from Christchurch Dave Weir and double Beijing 2008 Paralympic medallist Shelly Woods are Britain's biggest medal hopes in the men's and women's events respectively.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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