by Alex Hoad at the Olympic Stadium

Stephen Osborne was disappointed by his performance in the T51 100m Final infront of 80,000 people at the Olympic Stadium, but revealed he had never competed infront of more than 50 people before.

Wheelchair sprinter Osborne got away slowly and was left in the wake of Finn Toni Piispanen in the next lane, who stormed to gold in a Paralympic record of 21.72secs, while Osborne came home fifth in 23.40 – well outside his personal best.

The 49-year-old from Longfield near Gravesend only took up the sport at the start of the 2011 season after spending more than a decade playing wheelchair rugby.

Osborne received a genuinely breathtaking reception on the start-line, with the commentators revealing to the crowd it was his Games debut at the age of 49, which just sent the sound levels even higher.

Osborne said: “The biggest crowd I’d competed infront of before was maybe 30 to 50 people, so you can imagine how I felt when I came out and saw that.

“I should have stopped looking around at everybody, because I was disappointed with my race. I should have done better. I wanted a medal.

“But it was an incredible experience. How many people get the chance to do that?”

He added: “I didn’t expect anybody to go off as fast as they did. I was quite surprised.

“With the 51s we don’t get to race each other very often, there are no races in England so you have to travel to meet everybody, so we don’t often get to see where everyone is (in terms of form).”

Osborne – who was paralysed in a car crash at the age of 19 – vowed: “I’m going to be around for another four years. I’m going to keep going. I want to go to Rio.

“I’m not going to stop now. I know I can do better. If I’d come out and done my best and got beaten then (so be it)... but I didn’t.

“But I only started at the beginning of last season. I’ve come this far in just over a year... four years is a long time.”

He revealed he was keen to get straight back onto the track to train once he has left the Olympic Village.

He said: “I’m going straight back in. I want to keep training. I enjoy it. Until I started this I didn’t realise what there was in our area, where there was to train. It’s fantastic.”