Alexis Hanquinquant, winner of the triathlon, gives France its third gold medal

France continues its medal harvest at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Big favorite of the event, Alexis Hanquinquant became, on Saturday August 28, Paralympic champion in the PTS4 category (for “Paratriathlon standing”, “Standing categories”) of the triathlon. He brings to the French team its third gold medal of the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

Triple world champion (2017, 2018 and 2019), the 35-year-old Norman is the only competitor to record a time under the minute (59 min 58 s) and is almost four minutes ahead of his pursuer, the Japanese Hideki Uda, in this event comprising 750 meters of swimming, 20 kilometers of cycling and 5 kilometers of running.

“The plan went perfectly, relish the triathlete. I had worked out several strategies, but from the start of the swim I thought the best was to attack. “

“When I get out of the water and someone tells me twenty-five seconds apart, I tell myself that it’s really a good day”, tells the one who won gold in his first Games, six years after starting the paratriathlon.

Victim of an industrial accident at the age of 24, Alexis Hanquinquant ended up choosing, three years later, to have his right leg amputated, crushed by a construction machine. Already a high-level athlete before his accident, he was titled French full-contact boxing champion in less than 86 kg.

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Marie-Amélie Le Fur 5 centimeters from gold in length

The tricolor paratriathlon collected another medal on Saturday. The Frenchwoman Annouck Curzillat won, on the wire, the bronze in the TTVI1 category, in 1 h 11 min 45 s, two seconds ahead of the Briton Alison Peasgood.

On the fourth day of the competition, France has nineteen medals. The athlete Marie-Amélie Le Fur, failed to keep her gold medal acquired in length in Rio. With 6.11 m, she failed 5 centimeters from the Dutch Fleur Jong, and despite everything obtained a beautiful silver medal.

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Table tennis also gave France three more medals, one silver and two bronze. The youngest of the delegation, Léa Ferney, 17, thus became the first French paralympic vice-champion in adapted sport table tennis, winning silver against the world and European champion, Elena Prokofieva. Earlier today, Maxime Thomas, in class 4, Thu Kamkasomphou, in class 8, Anne Barnéoud, in class 7, and Lucas Créange, in class 11, all four won a bronze medal.

And the visually impaired cyclist Raphaël Beaugillet also won bronze on kilometer B in tandem with François Pervis, six-time world champion in track cycling among the able-bodied.

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The World with AFP