Day-3: Swimmers Reece Dunn and Valeriia Shabalina doubled their Gold tally

By Mousumi Mazumdar

Another busy and exciting day at the Tokyo Aquatics and Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium with finals and quarterfinal events taking place at the respective venues.

In Swimming, the Paralympic debut maker- Reece Dunn from Great Britain is becoming quite a sensation at the pool in S14 category.

Dunn not only won his second Gold medal at Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, he also set a new World Record in 200m Freestyle 1:52.40sec in a neck to neck race with – Gabriel Bandeira Silver (1:52.74sec) from Brazil. Viacheslav Emeliantsev from RPC settled for Bronze by timing 1:55.58sec.

In Women’s category, Valeriia Shabalina (PRC) claimed her second Gold at pool winning the title for S14 200m Freestyle by clocking 2:03.71sec, beating the former Paralympic champion from Great Britain- Bethany Firth who settled for Silver with a timing of 2:03.99sec. Team GBR also took home the Bronze with swimmer and Virtus ambassador, Jessica-Jane Applegate finishing with a time of 2:09.53sec.

In Table Tennis, an extremely thrilling match was seen between Hungarian player Peter Palos and host nation’s ‘Wild Horse’ Asano Takashi. Long rallies of aggressive smashes were delivered by the Japanese player across the table, which were returned gently by the Hungarian. After a nerve wrecking fight Peter secured his place in the semi-finals with 3-2 game. “I feel very tired, the match was very exhausting and I feel so good after winning the match” says the bronze medallist from Rio 2016, Peter Palos.

Japan’s Asano says he is very sorry to all the people who supported him. “My target was to win a Gold medal this time but could not do so. The opponent (Palos) is like a king in the world of Para Table-Tennis, he won Gold in London, Bronze in Rio so he is very strong and has a very good mental strength. I promise to win a Gold in Paris 2024” says Asano.

On another table, Cuesta Martinez from Spain was seen putting pressure on Sam von Einem from Australia in the initial rounds but the Aussie had a smooth win eventually and moved into quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.

In the third match, Lucas Creange (FRA) stayed undefeated by Takashi Takemori (JPN) and qualified into the semi-finals with a flat win with 3-0 points.

The defending Champion from Rio, Florian vanAcker (BEL)  faced some difficult moves from the Chang Gi Kim, from Korea in the first and third match. However, with the score of 3-1, the Belgian player moved also moves into the Semi-finals.

The Semi-Final matches for both Women’s and Men’s Category will be played tomorrow. Remember to follow Virtus on Social media for regular updates.

DAY-1: Russian Shabalina breaks her own record World Record

By Mousumi Mazumdar

On the first day of competition at the 2020 Paralympic Games, in the Women’s 100m Butterfly S14, Shabalina Valeriia (WR) broke her own WR of 1:03.68 and set a new one for 1:03.59sec. Talking to Virtus, Shabalina says “My hands and legs were shivering just before the event and I was very stressed because it was the most important event of my life, but my coach helped me stay calm. I am happy with my performance now.”

Silver medal winner with a timing of 1:05.48 sec, Paige Leonhardt from Australia said “personally I didn’t execute what I wanted to during the heats, so I really wanted to have a really good and strong race, and that’s what I did and came back with a silver medal. I also got to share the podium with Ruby and I am very proud of her.”

Ruby Storm (AUS) claimed the bronze with a timing of 1:06.50sec. “It was very unexpected, I came third in the heats and was really shocked about that and I came away with a Bronze medal” said the swimmer.

Men’s 100m Butterfly S14

A thrilling start was seen when three swimmers Liam Schluter from AUS in heat 1, Gabriel Bandeira (BRA) heat-2 and Reece Dunn (GBR) recorded Paralympic records in their respective heats but the Brazilian made it to the top of the podium.

Creating a new Paralympic record of 54.76sec, Bandeira grabbed the first S14 class Gold medal from Tokyo 2020.

Bandeira says “I feel so happy, I trained a lot for this day. In the morning I controlled through the race (heat) and in the finals I just gave it all. I was quite nervous as I wrote down on paper- ‘I will swim very fast’ which helped me a lot.”

World record holder-Reece Dunn had to face defeat and settle for Silver with the timing of 55.99sec while Australian swimmer Benjamin James Hance claimed the bronze with 56.90sec.

Although, Lawrence Sapp from USA could not make it to the podium, the athlete was very excited to make his Paralympic debut. He lead the race until 50m but finished fifth.

Meanwhile Dai Tokarin, the host nation’s champion, ranked second in the World and was expected to give a strong competition to the WR holder Reece Dunn, but was left heartbroken when he could not qualify for the 100m Butterfly Finals with the timing of 58.44sec.

The 2021 Virtus World Athletics Championships have closed with 3 new World Records set including France’s Beatrice Aoustin who broke her own WR throwing 50.51 in the Hammer.

Competing on home soil, Karolina Kucharczyk jumped a Virtus record of 2.54m in the Triple Jump, whilst also taking a new record in the 100m Hurdles, finishing in 14.37.

The event was the largest to be held by Virtus under the new Covid protocols. All participants were tested ahead of arrival in Poland, and again mid-way, before a final test ahead of departure. All covid tests were negative.

Virtus would like to thank hosts Sprawni-Razem for their efforts in the difficult circumstances that exist and all the nations and teams that supported the event. Jose Costa Perreira, Sport Director – Athletics, said ” With 10 nations and more than 100 athletes, this was a smaller event than we are used to but was a huge success given the barriers many nations face. Congratulations to our Polish hosts who delivered a fantastic event, live-streamed to the world”.

Full results can be found here.