Fantastic Paralympic medal haul for Belgium
The spotlight has gone out on the Rio Paralympic Games, where our Belgian athletes produced some exceptional performances. The Belgian Paralympic team reaped no fewer than 11 medals, coming 25th in the overall medal table; this is more than the Olympic Games, where Belgium won seven medals, and better than the target announced at the start of the Games (eight medals, finishing in the top 40 in the medal table).
This is of course a remarkable performance, but it was not unexpected given the world-class level of our athletes. Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid, together with the Sports Ministers Philippe Muyters and Rachid Madrane, had the honour of personally awarding three of these medals to our Belgian champions.
Belgium won five gold medals - one for the young table tennis player Laurens Devos and one for Florian Van Acker in the same sport, two for the wheelchair athlete Peter Genyn, with one in the 100m and one in the 400m, and the fifth Belgian gold medal for the horse rider Michèle George in the freestyle competition.
On the second rung of the podium, Belgium won three silvers - one for the wheelchair athlete Marieke Vervoort in the 400m, a second for Michèle George in the dressage and one for Kris Bosmans in the road cycling.
And last but not least, we also won three bronze medals - one for Joachim Gérard in the wheelchair tennis, one for the handcycling trio of Jean-François Deberg, Christophe Hindricq and Jonas Van de Steene, and a final medal for Marieke Vervoort in the 100m.
Congratulations to all these athletes for their results and to the other members of the Belgian team for their participation!