Austin Smeenk rang the bell enthusiastically.
The Canadian wheelchair racer won the men’s 800 metres T51 event on Saturday at the Paris Paralympic Games.
The winners in athletics at the Olympic and Paralympic Games rang a bell engraved with “Paris 2024” at the Stade de France.
The bell will then be installed in a tower of Notre Dame Cathedral when the iconic building is restored after a fire in 2019.
Smeenk coveted the ritual after seeing other Canadian athletes grab the rope to hear a satisfying sound.
“It’s awesome,” said the 27-year-old Ontarian. “I’ve been looking forward to doing it since Ethan Katzberg and Camryn Rogers did it about a month ago.”
Katzberg and Rogers won gold in the hammer throw at the Olympics.
Smeenk gave Canada its fifth Paralympic gold medal and eighth track and field medal.
British Columbia’s Cody Fournie won two gold medals in the T51 wheelchair sprint and Quebec’s Brent Lakatos won the T53 800 metres. British Columbia’s Greg Stewart defended his men’s F37 shot put title.
Long jumper Noah Vucsics and defending 1,500-meter champion Nate Reich had not yet competed in Saturday night’s track and field final.
Smeenk set world records in the 400 and 800 metres earlier this year and then won the first Paralympic gold medal of his career. He is a double medallist in Paris, having won bronze in the 100 metres. The 400 metres was not on the programme.
The Canadian built a healthy lead early in the 800 metres and began to pull away in the final stretch. Smeenk threw his arms in the air as he crossed the finish line, edging Thailand’s Chaiwat Rattana by two-tenths of a second.
“I had a lot of confidence that I had beaten everyone, that’s why I put my arms up,” Smeenk said. “Pride comes before the fall and it could have been very risky. You can’t take unnecessary risks, especially at the Paralympics. Luckily, I was on the right side of that bet.”
His fiancée, Celine Trapnell, was among a dozen family members and friends at the stadium to cheer on Smeenk, in his third Paralympic Games.
Smeenk was born with spastic paraplegia, a hereditary condition that causes stiffness and progressive contraction of the lower limbs. His power and efficiency allowed him to rotate his arms more slowly than most of his competitors in the final.
“I’ve actually been in a racing chair for 20 years. It’s an evolution of technique, and if you’re going to be someone, you might as well be efficient,” he said. “Learning how to reach top speed without peak frequency was a crucial development for being successful in long-distance racing.”
The electromechanical engineering technology student at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., put his studies on hold to move to Victoria in 2022 and train with other Olympians and Paralympians.
Smeenk, however, put his studies to good use, working as part of a team that designed his racing chair.
“Learning to think scientifically has been crucial in refining my racing chair. To the point where it is the lightest of all my competitors and one of the best racing chairs at this year’s Paralympics,” he explained. “I am smarter every day because of the things I have learned and I have applied that to the world of wheelchair racing as best I can.”