Wheelchair athlete Anthony Bouchard finished fourth in the T52 100m on Friday, half a wheel away from the third step of the podium at the Paris Paralympic Games.
The sun was blazing down on the Stade de France track and the Quebecer was waiting for his name to be announced before making his entrance. The nerves were very present at that moment.
Bouchard was aiming for a place in the final when he arrived in Paris for his first Paralympic Games. His fourth-place finish in qualifying the day before made it clear that he was in the hunt for a medal.
“It was the first time in my life that I qualified by finishing in the top three of my heat,” Anthony Bouchard told Sportcom. “It was cool not to have to wait for the second heat to find out if I was going to the final! I was still proud of that, but it comes with more nerves. The goal was to at least do the same thing again, if not better.”
Already a gold medallist in the 400m T52, Belgium’s Maxime Carabin won his second Paralympic title in the French capital. He posted a time of 16.7 seconds and beat Britain’s Marcus Perrineau Daley and Japan’s Tomoki Sato.
[Une médaille]it would have been fun, but you can’t play with assumptions and what could have happened. I did the best race I could do and that gave me a fourth place.
Anthony Bouchard
Bouchard, for his part, clocked a time of 17.55 seconds and finished 6 thousandths of a second ahead of Mexico’s Salvador Hernandez Mondragon, who took fifth place. At the Parapan American Games in Santiago, the two athletes also had a good battle in the final of this event and the Canadian representative had the upper hand by 3 hundredths.
“It’s crazy! I just learned that we finished almost tied, a few thousandths of a second apart,” mentioned the Almatois who had ranked 6the of the 400m T52, a few days earlier.
“I came here with the goal of making the finals, but also not finishing last in the finals like at the 2023 World Championships. I managed to do that in the 100m as well as the 400m.”
His coach Nathalie Séguin was very proud of her protégé’s performance. She expected strong adversity, especially after the very tough semi-finals the day before, which she followed with her binoculars from the top of the stands.
“It’s excellent! In his first Games, Anthony is able to deliver on demand. His start was excellent, in the semi-finals as well as in the final. He was able to stay alongside the best in the world until the end. That’s what you want for a final,” she shared.
Since she is not part of Athletics Canada’s staff, Nathalie Séguin travelled to Paris as a spectator. She stayed in touch with Anthony Bouchard on a daily basis and was as stressed as he was for the final.
“We are a team despite the distance and it was important for me to be here.”
“This is just the beginning”
Anthony Bouchard’s para-athletics career began in 2021 and his first international competition took place the following year, at the Nottwil Grand Prix in Switzerland.
In 2023, the 31-year-old athlete competed in his first World Championships and achieved two eighth-place finishes. Four months later, he won two medals at the Parapan American Games in Santiago.
The distance traveled in such a short time surprised many, starting with the main person concerned and his coach. The Paris Paralympic Games were becoming achievable and after Friday’s performance, those in Los Angeles are now circled on the calendar.
“Anthony has proven that he is an athlete at heart. He has all the necessary qualities and he is already motivated for the Los Angeles Games. He didn’t talk about it too much, but in the last few weeks, he has been talking about it more and I can see the excitement. This is just the beginning,” commented Nathalie Séguin, specifying that she already had some ideas in mind for future training.
“It gives you an idea of the goals for the next four years,” concluded Anthony Bouchard. “I knew I wanted to do several Games, but after having experienced this, I’m going to do everything I can to be back.”