Four new world records fell on Tuesday on the third day of the world championships in Paris, where China still dominates the medal table. All four records have been bettered by their own holders.
By winning the T37 category long jump event, which brings together cerebral palsy athletes, China’s Xiaoyan Wen broke one of the evening’s records with a jump of 5.33m. This is the improvement of his own reference mark – 5.22m – reached in 2019 at the Dubai Worlds. The Chinese gleaned four new medals in total for their country on Tuesday with the titles of Juan Yao in the F64 category discus throw, Lijuan Zou in the F34 javelin and Xia Zhou in the 200m T35. China now has 16 medals, including seven titles.
Thailand hit hard by improving the men’s 400m T34 and T53 world records respectively, thanks to the victories of Chaiwat Rattana and Pongsakorn Paeyo, also already holders of the two previous best times. The evening ended with a high jump competition (T47) which kept the public at the Stade Charléty, in the south of Paris, spellbound until the start of the night, and where the American Roderick Townsend gleaned the world title. With a jump of 2.16m, Townsend erased his own mark of 2.15m set at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
In the other results of the evening, the Ecuadorian Kiara Rodriguez was crowned world champion in the 100m T47 ahead of one of the favorites, the American reigning world champion Brittni Mason. Rodriguez, 20, who had already been crowned in 2019 in Dubai in the long jump, beat Mason by 7 hundredths to win this second title. Finally France opened its counter at home, thanks to the bronze medal of the long jump specialist Manon Genest. Second in the medal table, Switzerland, a wheelchair racing specialist, saw Catherine Debrunner and Manuela Schaer win the T53 and T54 categories. The World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, which take place until July 17, mark a first major step before the 2024 Paralympic Games.
