The largest competition of the Paralympics kicked off Friday morning with four Canadians in action at the Stade de France.
Anthony Bouchard (Quebec City) placed sixth in the men’s T52 400m final on Friday at Stade de France. The promising wheelchair racer clocked at 1:04.09, three seconds shy of a podium finish, in his Games debut.
Romania’s Maxime Carabin captured the gold medal with a time of 55.10, after setting a Paralympic record in the heats at 54.48 iearlier on Friday. Tomoki Sato, of Japan, won silver with a time of 56.26, falling short of defending his gold medal won in Tokyo 2020.
Positioned in Lane Two, Bouchard quickly jumped ahead of Jerrold Pete Mangliwan (Philippines) in the opening turn. The 31-year-old, however, couldn’t match the speed of the podium finishers and was never in medal contention throughout the entire race.
Bouchard qualified for the finals with the fourth best time of 1:05.98 in the second heat of round one earlier on Friday.
Bouchard will look to bounce back in the men’s T52 100m, an event in which he won gold at the 2023 Parapan American Games, in Santiago, Chile.
Brent Lakatos (Dorval, Que.) kicked off his sixth Paralympic Games with a season-best time of 10:35.15 in the opening round of the men’s T54 5,000m.
The wheelchair racer battled neck-and-neck with defending gold-medalist Marcel Hug (Switzerland), who led the group at 10:35.08.
It’s the first of several Paralympic events for Lakatos, who is slated to compete in the T53 400m, 800m and T54 1,500m. He won silver in each of the four events at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
The T54 5,000m final is scheduled for Saturday at 2:39 pm EST.
Canadian Amanda Rummery (Kenora, Ont.) finished second in her heat for women’s T47 400m with a time of 59.24, qualifying her for the final.
The 27-year-old came within 0.18 seconds of her personal best 59.06, recorded in a fourth place finish at the 2023 Para Pan Am Games.
Rummery is classified as a T46 athlete, and competes under the T47 category.
The final is scheduled for Saturday at 3:19 pm EST.
