By: Jonathan Yue
The world's top para athletes have descended into Dubai for the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships. Sending a total of 28 athletes, Canada got off to a good start on Day 1 in the Dubai Club for People of Determination.
Coming off his international debut in Lima, Peru for the Parapan American Games where he earned a silver medal, Zachary Gingras was Canada's first athlete to take the track for Round 1 of the men's 400m T38 competition.
Crossing the finish line in a time of 53.80, Gingras punched his ticket into tomorrow's final.
Looking to defend his 100-metre T53 title, Brent Lakatos showed off what he did best as he confidently pushed his way through the finish with a season's best time of 14.50 seconds to win his heat and qualify for tomorrow's final with the fastest qualifying time.
Picking off his competitors from lane 7, it wasn't until the 50-metre mark where the Dorval-native broke away from the pack to take the win. In his first competition since July, Lakatos feels good after shaking off the some of the rust.
"It's good to get out there and get the race underway. Looking forward to tomorrow," said Lakatos. "Doing a lot of longer distance races, I practiced more in the distance equipment because there's more events, so the fact that I'm defending and I want to defend the title, I don't get to spend as much time in this equipment as I want, means I'm a little bit more nervous than I would like to be, but hopefully it will come back."
Concluding the day for Canada was co-captain, Ilana Dupont in the women's 100-metre T53 qualifying round. Pushing hard through the finish line, Dupont stopped the clock at 18.14 to qualify for the final.
The action picks up on Day 2 tomorrow as the trio take the track again for their respective finals. They will be joined inside the Dubai Club by co-captain Alister McQueen (F46 javelin), Thomas Normandeau (T47 400-metres), Lee Leclerc and Austin Smeenk (T34 400-metres), and Josh Cassidy and Alex Dupont (T54 800-metres) as they get their Championships started.
Viewers will be able to follow the action via the free CBC Gem streaming service, cbcsports.ca, the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices, and CPC Facebook page, as well as the Radio-Canada Sports app and radio-canada.ca/sports. For more details and the full schedule, please visit Paralympic.ca/Paralympic-super-series.
