Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 3:02 p.m.
Disqualified for letting go of her guide’s link a few meters from the finish line of the marathon at the Paris Olympic Games, Spain’s Elena Congost wants to reclaim the bronze medal.
It was one of the striking images of these Paris Paralympic Games. On September 8, during the T12 women’s marathon, reserved for runners with a visual impairment whose field of vision is restricted to a radius of less than five degrees, and/or with the ability to recognize a moving object at a distance of one meter, the Spanish Elena Congost had thought she would take third place behind the Moroccans Fatima Ezzahra El Idrissi and Meryem En-Nourhi. And a third Paralympic medal, after the silver won in 2016 in Rio in the 1,500 m and then her gold medal in the marathon in Tokyo three years ago. Except that the Madrilenian was disqualified for a point of regulation, article R7.9.5. Her guide, Mia Carol, riddled with cramps and exhausted, could no longer advance a few meters from the finish. She had then temporarily released the link that must permanently connect them, which is formally forbidden, to cut the line with him.
“There was no fraud”
Deprived of third place, recovered by the Japanese Misato Michishita, she is now demanding justice, and has made a request to the IOC, the organizing committee of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as to the French Minister of Sports so that this “unfortunate decision” “can still be rectified amicably”, as can be read in a letter from her lawyers, the Belgian firm Dupont-Hissel. “Everyone understands that, in this situation, there was no fraud, but assistance to a person potentially in danger. Letting go of the rope did not save Elena Congost time, on the contrary, it made her lose it, details the rest of the text, before citing principles and European law in favor of the Spanish athlete, while hoping “that it will not be necessary to make a law or to initiate any legal proceedings”.
