Two new French titles in cycling, medals in athletics and swimming… The recap of Thursday’s day

Florian Jouanny and Mathieu Bosredon are the two French Paralympic champions on Thursday, after a day in which France won 11 new medals.

The goal of 20 titles is getting closer for the French clan. Thanks to 11 new medals on Thursday, September 5, including two gold, the Blues are now on 61 podiums in these Paris Paralympic Games and 17 first places, which allows them to stay in the top five of the medal table.

A tricolor balance sheet always carried by cycling, which has now brought, track and road combined, more than half of the French gold medals, with already nine Marseillaise which resonated between Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis). The day was also marked by the fourth consecration at the Stade de France for the Swiss Catherine Debrunner and the family victory of the Colombians Leidy and Edilson Chica in boccia.

French Day: Paracycling continues to carry the Blues, repeat performance for Adolphe and Chardard

Even in the wet, the road to Clichy-sous-Bois continues to smile on the Tricolores. Despite a delayed start and a shortened course, Florian Jouanny assumed his position as reigning world champion and Paralympic champion by winning the H1-2 category road race to launch a new harvest. Loïc Vergnaud in silver in the H5 and a new double for Mathieu Bosredon and Johan Quaile in H3 brought to 15 the number of medals won in two days on the road, including six gold.

A double that the swimmers of the 200m 4 medley SM9 would have liked to taste, but Ugo Didier and Hector Denayer had to settle for silver and bronze behind the untouchable Australian Timothy Hodge, who took the Paralympic record. Earlier in the Paris La Défense Arena swimming pool, it was Laurent Chardard who made the crowd roar by winning bronze in the 100m freestyle. A second medal in Paris for the Reunion native who retained a bitter taste of not having done better, failing to win silver by one hundredth of a second.

A few kilometres from the Nanterre basin, it was Thimothée Adolphe who was only a few hundredths of a second short of a big shot. As in the 400m, he had to settle for silver in the 100m, three hundredths behind the Greek Athanasios Ghavelas, world record holder for the distance in T11 (blind athletes). The other three medals of the day came from the Arena Champ-de-Mars with silver for judoka Sandrine Martinet in under 48 kg, from the Grand Palais, with bronze in the team foil and from Châteauroux, with third place for Jean-Louis Michaud in the prone rifle shooting SH1 at 50m.

Performance of the day: Catherine Debrunner makes it four

In her chair, Catherine Debrunner reigns supreme over the Stade de France for an almost unchallenged reign. On Thursday, the Swiss added a fourth gold medal set with a piece of the Eiffel Tower around her neck by winning the 400m with almost two seconds in advance and a Paralympic record to boot. Winning the title with a mark never set in the history of the Paralympic Games, the native of the canton of Thurgau, in the north of the country, knows how to do it, she has succeeded four times in Paris with the 400m, therefore, but also the 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m and is preparing to tackle the marathon on Sunday, to fill her collection a little more.

Only the 100m and Samantha Kinghorn on Wednesday managed to resist the frenzy of titles of the 29-year-old athlete, who had only been crowned once in Tokyo. Otherwise, the British athlete had to be content with three silver medals behind her rival. Catherine Debrunner did more than perpetuate the Swiss tradition of wheelchair athletics in Paris, she left her mark on it. No Swiss female athlete had ever won three titles in the same edition of the Paralympic Games, Catherine Debrunner won four in Paris and her program is not yet over.

Today’s great story: Edilson and Leidy Chica put Colombia on the Paralympic map

Like France, Colombia had never won a medal in boccia at the Paralympic Games before arriving at the Porte de Versailles. That was without counting on the Chica siblings who took it upon themselves to fill the South American country’s list of achievements with all the colours. First Leidy, on Sunday, who took bronze in the individual event after losing by just one point in the semi-final against the future gold medallist. Then Edilson, who took silver the next day.

A collective success already achieved, but not yet complete. The brother and sister have therefore decided to join forces to go for gold in mixed doubles. A culmination of several years of collective work in a sport discovered by the big brother on the advice of his therapist and imitated by his sister. Already world champions in mixed doubles in Rio in 2022, it is always as a family that Edilson and Leidy Chica shine the most.