Despite four finals contested during the day, the French team remains outside the podiums, and remains at the bottom of the medal standings with a 49th place, tied with Portugal. Engaged in the final of the long jump, an event bringing together the categories T45, T46 and T47 (amputation on the upper body), the very experienced Arnaud Assoumani, with a jump to 6.97m, had to settle for a fourth place and a quota for the Paralympic Games. “The medal is missing, and I had enough to get it,” admitted the quadruple Paralympic medalist in the discipline (including gold in Beijing in 2008). “I know I can go much further.”
The other results of the day on the French side were not more fruitful. In 100m T37 (cerebral palsy), Mandy François-Elie, bronze medalist in the 100m in 2019 in Dubai, this time finished in fifth place in 13”68. A high race where the Colombian winner Karen Palomeque set a new world record (12 sec 82/100). No miracle for Alexandra Nouchet, sixth in the 100m T63 (lower limb amputees), who still has to adapt her prosthesis to her disability – she was born with agenesis of the right leg – so that it “is well personalized”.
Soane Meissonier obtained fifth place in the F20 category – corresponding to an intellectual disability – in the shot put, while Romane Boulard finished 7th in the T38 long jump (cerebral palsy athletes). If Julien Casoli managed to qualify – on time – for a new final in the 1500m armchair (Friday), there are now four days left for the Blues to approach the results of six medals collected in Dubai four years earlier. Timothée Adolphe, who won silver in 2019 in the 100m T11 (visual impairment), will compete in the distance on Friday, while Mandy François-Elie, vice-world champion in the 200m, will try to get on the podium on Monday during of the last day of competition.
The day shed more light on Italy which, while it had so far only one medal in these world championships (in gold, in the 100m T64, including athletes with lower limb amputees), won five new metals including a resounding triple in 100m T63. Ambra Sabatini, 21 years old and amputated at the level of the left leg, was crowned, beating at the same time the world record by crossing the line in 13”98. She was followed by Martina Caironi and Monica Graziana Contrafatto, causing the trio to explode with joy. “It was fantastic, I don’t know what to say,” reacted the world champion, who admitted that her season had “not been the best”, surprising her even more with her record.
Italy now has two titles, one less than the Swiss Catherine Debrunner, imperial in the 1500m armchair (T54). The reigning Paralympic champion, 28, is the first athlete in these championships to have three titles in Paris, after the 800m T53 and the 5000m T54. Nine world records were broken Thursday in Charléty. Among them, that of the 100m T38 (cerebral palsy), by the American Jaydin Blackwell, who won his second title and had already broken the world record for the 400m the day before.
