HEREFORDSHIRE’S Josie Pearson has narrowly missed out on a medal at the Paralympic Games in Beijing.

The Brilley-based wheelchair rugby player created history when she became the first woman to represent Great Britain in the sport at the Games.

Pearson came on as a substitute in Britain’s bronze medal play-off against Canada.

But she could not stop her team from suffering an agonising 47-41 defeat to Canada on Tuesday.

“I’m absolutely devastated — I think we just made too many silly mistakes,” said Pearson, a former pupil at Fairfield High School.

“It has been a great experience — but we just never got ahead,” she said.

Pearson made her Games debut as a replacement in Britain’s 39-35 victory over Germany in the second of their group matches.

Pearson was named in the squad for Britain’s five matches which consisted of two wins and three defeats.

Swimmer Sascha Kindred, from Credenhill, completed a memorable games with a bronze medal in the men’s 50-metre butterfly at the Water Cube.

Kindred had already won golds in the 100-metre breaststroke and the 200-metre individual medley.

In the butterfly, Kindred qualified in second place in the heat and then took the bronze medal with a time of 32.49 in the final.

However, there was disappointment for Kindred’s partner, Nyree Lewis.

Lewis finished fourth in the final of the women’s 100-metre breaststroke after she had qualified from her heat in third.

Lewis also qualified in third place from the women’s 400-metre freestyle but she could only manage sixth place in the final.

Still, Lewis will return to Herefordshire with a silver medal having previously finished second in the women’s 100-metre backstroke.

There was disappointment for the Hereford-based Great Britain blind football team who missed out on a medal.

Yesterday, the team won a play-off against Korea to finish in fifth place.

Dave Clarke, who is a governor at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford, levelled the match at 1-1. He then converted the winning penalty in the shoot-out.

The team, who train at RNC, suffered a 3-0 defeat to China in their opening group game before bouncing back to record a 2-1 win over Korea.

Britain then suffered defeats to European champions Spain (3-1), World Champions Brazil (5-0) and Argentina (3-1).

Brazil won the gold medal after beating the hosts, China.

Coach Tony Larkin, who works at RNC, said: “It was a first for blind football in this country but the lads should feel very proud of themselves. We hope it marks the beginning of something exciting and new for the sport.”