SA team climb Paralympic table with two crucial bronze medals

The South African team raked in some crucial medals in the early session on Wednesday, edging their way up the table on day seven of the Paralympic Games in Paris.

In the morning, Quadriplegic handcyclist Pieter du Preez claimed bronze in the men’s H1 time trial.

Du Preez, who won gold at the Tokyo Games three years ago, completed the 14.2km course in the French capital in 36:07.05 to grab third place.

Fabrizio Cornegliani of Italy took the win, and the gold medal, in 34:50.45, and Maxime Hordies bagged silver in 35:11.13.

Du Preez earned Team SA’s third medal of the multi-sport showpiece, which would have come as some relief for the struggling SA squad.

Another bronze

And the national team gained further momentum on the wheelchair tennis court on Wednesday afternoon, with Donald Ramphadi and Lucas Sithole digging deep in a tightly contested battle to secure bronze by winning their quad doubles playoff.

Ramphadi and Sithole, who are both former Grand Slam champions, combined well to clinch a 6-2 4-6 [10-8] victory over the Brazilian pairing of Leandro Pena and Ymanitu Silva.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, in athletics, Kerwin Noemdo fell narrowly short of adding to the medal tally in the men’s F64 shot put final.

Noemdo was remarkably consistent, sending the shot well beyond 15 metres with all four of his legal attempts, but he settled for fifth position with a best throw of 15.63m in the opening round.

Canadian athlete Greg Stewart won gold with a 16.38m heave.

Other events

In equestrian, Philippa Johnson-Dwyer (riding Just In Time) took 14th position in the grade IV individual event with a score of 63.889.

With a total of four medals in the bag (one gold and three bronze) the SA team were lying 46th in the overall standings midway through the seventh day of competition.

Later on Wednesday night, 100m champion Mpumelelo Mhlongo was due to line up in the men’s T64 long jump final (8.30pm), aiming for his second medal of the Games.

In the swimming pool, Christian Sadie was due to compete in the men’s 50m freestyle S7 final (7.06pm), after finishing seventh overall (29.27 seconds) in the heats held earlier in the day.