Three days after the end of the track, the cyclists got back in the saddle on Wednesday morning for the road races in Clichy-sous-Bois. Like the triathlon on Monday, the events followed one another at a frantic pace, allowing the Blues of cycling to make a medal sweep.
Already crowned on the track, Frenchman Alexandre Léauté became Paralympic time trial champion in the C2 category on Wednesday, allowing the French delegation to obtain a 12th gold medal and surpass the number of titles obtained in Tokyo in 2021.
In the women’s event, Heidi Gaugain won the silver medal in the same event in C5, her second at these Games. She finished just behind Britain’s Sarah Storey, who thus won the 18th Paralympic title of her career.
Florian Jouanny, like three years ago in Tokyo, won the bronze medal in the Handbike 2 time trial, a category intended for quadriplegic athletes who operate their recumbent pedals using their arms.
In the afternoon, the medals came one after the other for the French delegation in the time trials: gold for Kévin Le Cunff (C4) and Thomas Peyroton-Dartet (C3), silver for Gatien Le Rousseau (C4) and Elie de Carvalho (B), and finally bronze for Dorian Foulon (C5).
Ukrainian-born American star Oksana Masters won a seventh Paralympic title, her third in para-cycling, in the H4-5 time trial.
Disappointments in wheelchair fencing
French players from other disciplines also hope to shine, starting at midday.
Disappointment in wheelchair fencing: Maxime Valet and Brianna Vide were eliminated in foil. In this discipline, all eyes were on one of the stars of these Paralympic Games, the Italian Bébé Vio, who also experienced a big disappointment on Wednesday. After easily qualifying for the foil semi-final, she was eliminated by the Chinese Rong Xiao, to everyone’s surprise.
In athletics, Timothée Adolphe, who won silver in his favourite distance of 400m, finished first in his 100m series. The finals take place on Thursday.
But from Wednesday evening, the chances of medals in athletics will be for Dimitri Pavadé, in the T64 long jump.
It’s also a busy day for Stéphane Houdet at Roland-Garros. He first faced Spaniard Martin de la Fuente in the singles in the quarter-finals but he couldn’t hold on in the third set and was eliminated. He will now meet his men’s doubles partner Frédéric Cattaneo for the semi-final against a British pair.
Table tennis player Fabien Lamirault will play his singles semi-final against Czech Jiri Suchanek at the end of the afternoon and will try to be the first Frenchman to get past this stage, after three failures.
fs-vac/
