Stafford ace Jess Luke goes for gold in London

STAFFORD Paralympian Jess Luke was homing in on a medal today as she prepared for Great Britain's goalball quarter-final against Sweden.

Luke, 24, gave a royal command performance as GB's women thumped Denmark 5-0 to stretch their unbeaten run to three games and set up this afternoon's last-eight clash.

Goalball – a three-on-three sport played by blind athletes – has been one of the surprise hits of the Games and Prince Harry arrived in time to see Luke open the scoring.

"We're gelling more and more as a team and we are really complementing each other and confidence is high now," said Luke.

"It's unbelievable. This is a little sport which nobody knows about and I'm always having to explain what it is to people.

"So it's hard to believe that Prince Harry was here giving us his support, hopefully it will only put the sport on the map.

"Defence is our bread and butter and we have to have that solid platform to build on, so to keep a clean sheet is a big boost.

"We look more and more like a team every time we play. We played to our strengths. We kept a clean sheet. If they can't score, they can't win."

The victory was also Great Britain's first clean sheet and, following a draw against Finland and win over Brazil, it set them up perfectly for today's quarter-final.

It's a long way from their nervous start to the competition – a 7-1 hammering at the hands of China in the Copper Bowl.

"It was getting China over and done with early that worked for us," added Luke.

"We could have folded after the 7-1 defeat, but we used it as a springboard. We're not looking beyond today because whoever we play is going to be a very difficult match."

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