MARK Brown will be preparing to go for gold as the 11th Paralympics Games gets under way in Sydney tomorrow.

Brown, who lost his arm in a motorbike accident, will be taking part in the marathon on the final day, October 29, on the same course, with the same pain and the same aim as the able bodied athletes in the Olympics just weeks earlier -- to win a gold medal.

It will be 38-year-old Mark's final competitive race as he plans to retire from the international scene after hopefully going two better than the bronze he won in the 26 mile event in Atlanta four years ago.

"I do really see this as my final chance," said the Burnley runner. "I've spent six years aiming for this and the two and a half hours of pain I feel during the marathon will be minimal compared to the lifetime of pain if I don't suceed. It means so much."

His main rival is Spaniard Javier Conde who, while Mark is aiming to break the two hour 30 mark, has a personal best of under two hours 20.

Britain won a total of 122 medals, including 39 golds, at the 1996 Atlanta games and are looking to better that achievement in Sydney -- which, like the Olympics before them, have captured the imaginations of sports-mad Australians.

Tickets for the opening ceremony sold out well in advance and the target figure of 650,000 sales for the events, which feature 18 sports from athletics to swimming, basketball to table tennis has been passed by 150,000.

Britain is represented by a total of 214 athletes, the oldest of whom is 58-year-old Cowes sailor Andy Cassell and the youngest 15-year-old swimmer Natalie Jones from Colchester.