Nathalie Benoît wins bronze in para-rowing, her third Paralympic medal

Nathalie Benoit’s students may have to wait one or two more days for their teacher to return to school. Indeed, the French rower brought an 18th medal for France at these Paralympic Games on Sunday morning, on the Vaires-sur-Marne pool. A regular on the podium for her, having already won silver in London in 2012 and bronze three years ago in Tokyo. At 44, the member of the Rowing Club de Marseille fought until the end to try to be the runner-up to the Israeli Moran Samuel, literally untouchable in the PR1 single sculls final, and thus end her career in the best possible way.

Alas, despite a formidable finish, when she was only 4th less than 300 metres from the line, Nathalie Benoit only managed to swallow up the Ukrainian Anna Sheremet – in distress over the last 100 metres -, the Norwegian Birgit Skarstein managing to save 44 hundredths of a second ahead of the Frenchwoman when crossing the finish line, when she had almost a five-second lead at the halfway point, per kilometre. “This one, unlike those in London or Tokyo where I was always well placed, I had to go and get it.”Nathalie Benoit confided to France Télévision. “I believed in it all along, I didn’t panic. I tried not to let myself get caught up in my emotions and I’m very happy to have achieved this in front of my family, my loved ones. And for the money, I don’t regret anything, I gave it my all until the end and I couldn’t have done more.”

The Frenchwoman’s performance is an ideal start to the day for French para-rowing, which has four other boats in the final this Sunday and can hope to reap a good harvest under a beautiful sun in Vaires-sur-Marne, with a crowd there to push them on.