Paralympics, Ganeshamoorthy wins gold with world record in discus throw

Paris, 1 September 2024 – Two golds, a world record, cell phone convict and a marriage proposal. Nothing is missing in the Paralympics blue. Rigivan Ganeshamoorthy, until a few months ago, had never thrown a discus. In Paris, he was at his third international competition, not only did he win the gold medal as a debutant at the Paralympics, he who has never competed in a European or World Championship, but he did so by improving his performance three times world record class F52, the last with a 27.06 unreachable by all his opponents (the silver medalist, the Latvian Apinis, threw 20.62, almost 7 meters less), first Italian medal in athletics.

Rigivan Ganeshamoorthy, Record-Breaking Gold Medalist in Discus Throw

Born in 1999, born in Rome to parents originally from Sri Lanka, affected by Guillain-Barré syndrome, to which in 2019 was added a cervical injury caused by a fall, Ganeshamoorthy He only discovered athletics by chance, after trying wheelchair basketball.

From swimming, two more medals. Splendid the gold of Stephen Raimondi in the 100 freestyle S10: 51“40 his time, a formidable result if you consider that, in the specialty, three years ago in Tokyo he had obtained the bronze. He was not the favorite, but his last quarter of the race was impressive and for the Australians Crothers and Gallagher there was nothing they could do. Second Parisian gold for the 26-year-old from Verona after the confirmation in the 100 breaststroke SB9, in a final that, in fifth place, saw Simone Barlaam, whose 52“43 is a Paralympic record in the specialty for the S9 class, considering her presence in the pool with athletes of the higher functional classification. The same distance and the same S10 classification, but female, led to a medal Alessia Scortechini, 27 year old from Rome, bronze in a final that saw her set the Italian record (1'01”02).

In the morning, during rowing, it had occurred the yellow of the cell phone. That's right: the Roman rower James Perini, capable of closing the race with a prestigious PR1 rowing third place which had earned him the bronze medal, he saw it taken away due to a distraction, having forgotten his cell phone in his bag on board the vessel, an aspect that cost him the disqualification following a complaint from Australia, whose athlete Erik Horrie thus took over the podium. But Perini did not use his cell phone. “The disqualification was due to an oversight: I had not noticed,” he explained, “but in the reasoning it is written that they “found” me while I was using communication equipment: they are making false statements. I gave the phone to the jury so they could see that the last call was from the night before, with the psychologist. As much as I may complain, it is not a mistake: the rules do not say that you cannot bring a phone, but that you cannot communicate. And I did not do this. The Australian? I would never have wanted to win the bronze in this way.” On Monday evening, watch out for the Men's 100m T64 final: on the track Maxcel I love Manu. In the semi-final he scored the Paralympic specialty recordAlessandro didn't make it to the final Ossola, but at the end of the race he asked his partner Arianna, whom he met in 2019, to marry him.