US wheelchair racing legend Tatyana McFadden yesterday won her 18th Paralympic medal, while elsewhere at the Tokyo Games charismatic Italian fencer Beatrice “Bebe” Vio defended her title.
On Day 4 of the competition, 54 gold medals were up for grabs across nine sports, including 17 athletics finals at the Olympic Stadium.
McFadden took bronze in the women’s T54 5,000m to extend her streak of finishing on the podium in every Paralympic race she has entered since 2008.
Photo: AFP
However, she said just competing in Tokyo was a victory in itself, having been diagnosed with a blood-clotting disorder in 2017 that took almost two years to recover from.
“I’m on cloud nine,” said the 32-year-old, who was born in Russia and raised in an orphanage until she was adopted at the age of six. “I was in a really dark spot, because it took me 20 months to recover and everyone was getting better in those 20 months.”
It was “quite amazing” that she took the bronze behind US teammate Susannah Scaroni, who won gold, McFadden said.
Photo: AFP
Away from the track, Italian force of nature Vio, one of the world’s most recognizable Paralympians, defended her wheelchair fencing individual foil title from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
Vio, who had both forearms and legs amputated when she contracted meningitis as an 11-year-old, won all her morning pool bouts to book her place in the quarters.
She was in unstoppable form as she defeated China’s Zhou Jingjing 15-9 in the gold medal match, just as she had done in Rio five years ago.
The Italian screamed in joy before bursting into tears in the arms of her coach after the winning point was scored.
Vio had not been able to compete for two years before the Games because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and said that she was “scared” as she prepared to return to action in Tokyo.
“I don’t know what is going to happen this time, but I’m just so happy to be here,” she said on the eve of the Games.
Away from the competition, organisers apologised after a visually impaired Japanese judoka was hit by a self-driving bus in the Paralympic village on Thursday.
Tokyo 2020 suspended operation of the vehicles after the incident, in which one of the buses “made contact” with Aramitsu Kitazono.
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