Commercial presentation Updated: 30/08/2024 20:22 Issued: 30/08/2024, 19:02
Paralympic Games, 30 August 2024, Paris. Swimming – 400 meter freestyle – final. David Kratochvíl from the Czech Republic rejoices at the victory. CTK/Barbora Reichová/Czech Paralympic Team
Paris – Sixteen-year-old swimmer David Kratochvíl became the Paralympic champion in the 400-meter freestyle. The visually impaired athlete took care of the first medal for the Czech expedition in Paris in a supreme manner, winning the S11 category race in a European record time of 4:26.34 minutes with a lead of exactly five seconds.
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With his triumph in his Paralympic debut, Kratochvíl followed up on the title of world champion, which he won on the same track last year in Manchester. At this year’s European Championships in Funchal, he won silver in the crawling 400m behind Dutchman Rogier Dorsman, to whom he easily avenged his defeat today thanks to a crushing finish in the final 100m. By 23 hundredths, he deprived the defending champion of the continental record and replaced him on the Paralympic throne.
“I thought that if I was fifth in my first Paralympics, it would be great, and now I have gold from my first race. I have achieved everything I have ever dreamed of, and I really wish everyone to experience that too. Fulfillment the dream of life is a completely fantastic feeling,” said Kratochvíl in the press release of the Czech Paralympic team.
He was still two-tenths off second at the penultimate turn, but then took the lead for the first time in the race and completed the final pool more than three seconds faster than his Dutch rival, a three-time gold medalist from the previous Games in Tokyo. “It’s absolutely great, a totally amazing feeling. When my dad told me that I was a Paralympic champion, it was a brutal euphoria,” rejoiced Kratochvíl, who improved his personal best by more than seven seconds.
The Japanese Uču Tomita finished third with a loss of 5.99 seconds to the Czech winner.
Kratochvíl, who lost his sight at the age of six due to retinal disease, has five more starts in Paris. The student of the Tachov grammar school will try to imitate the medal campaign from this year’s European Championship, where he turned seven races into five valuable metals, including gold from the ensign hundred. “Gold will kick in terribly, now things will go much better. But of course I don’t want to rest on my laurels,” he pointed out.
Agáta Koupilová also swam the final today in Paris, and in the S5 category 100-meter freestyle race, the twenty-four-year-old wheelchair user took seventh place.
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