Paralympic Games: Gold medal for Peter Genyn in the 100 m
At the Tokyo Games, the Belgian retained his Paralympic title of best wheelchair sprinter, winning a fourth gold medal for Belgium. In the 200 m, Peter Genyn also won the silver medal.
Peter Genyn lined up in the T51 class, which includes athletes with total limb and trunk damage. Already a gold medallist at the last Rio Games in 2016, his success was confirmed 5 years later. However, shortly before the start of the 100 m final, everything seemed to be in jeopardy.
As he explains: "I arrived at the stadium 45 minutes before my warm-up and found my chair with three flat tires and a damaged frame. It's a good thing everyone around me stayed calm because I collapsed when I saw my chair. It was awful. Some of the Dutch team and members of the stadium's technical department came to help me. We recovered some parts from other chairs. We assembled the parts with tape and everything came together just in time. The chair wasn't perfect, but it was enough."
Fortunately, what looks like an act of sabotage did not prevent the Brasschaat native (province of Antwerp) from winning. What's more, at the age of 44, he clocked a time of 20.03, beating the Paralympic record he set in Rio.
Roger Habsch, another Belgian, also made the podium with a nice third place and a time of 20.76.