The heavens opened on the final night of action in the Bird’s Nest as David Weir won his second gold medal of the Paralympic Games. In a crash--affected men’s wheelchair 1,500 metres, the 29-year-old from Wallington, Surrey, proceeded cautiously after his customary fast start before unleashing a scorching finish.

There was no protest from Australia this time, but it was their own athlete, Kurt Fearnley, who caused the crash when he slid sideways on the bend, 800 metres into the race. The incident split the field, leaving Weir and Pra-wat Wahoram, the winner of the 5,000 metres in which an out-of-sorts Weir took the bronze medal last Thursday, on their own. Weir took the final bend slowly before burning off Wahoram, of Thailand, easily.

Having spent much of the first two laps boxed in by Fearnley, Weir could feel the danger as wheels skidded and elbows touched. “I could feel them upping the pace and I thought ‘if I don’t get out of here it could be race over’,” he said. “I moved out to lane three, the safest lane because it’s not as tight and slippy.”

Weir received his 800 metres gold medal on Sunday, after Fearnley withdrew his appeal over lane allocation. Yesterday, he was undecided about competing in this morning’s marathon, after 13 races in nine days, and said that he would take medical advice and decide when he woke up.

“I was watching Mickey [Bushell, who won silver in the men’s 100 metres wheelchair] race and screaming at the telly, and that got me buzzing,” Weir said yesterday. “Then I was on the warm-up track and Shell [Shelley Woods] gets silver.”

Woods won a silver that she can keep in the women’s wheelchair 1,500 metres, finishing behind Chantal Petitclerc, the 38-year-old from Canada, who won her fifth gold of the Games, repeating her feat from Athens four years ago. Woods had taken silver in the 5,000 metres, but had to give it back after a rerun was ordered, in which she won bronze.