Victory of challenged athletes

By Vestnik Kavkaza

On August 10 Moscow opens the World Athletics Championships. Meanwhile, the World Athletics Championships for people with lesions of the musculoskeletal system, the blind and people with learning difficulties has already ended. The Russian national team in athletics for the first time in history came first in the unofficial team standings at the IPC World Championships in Lyon, winning 53 awards, nearly half of them gold. The Russians won 26 gold, 16 silver and 11 bronze medals. The Americans came second and won 52 awards (17-18-17), while the Chinese, winners of the previous championship, got only 27 (10-13-4).

The tournament, according to organizers, was the largest in history by number of participants (more than 1100), participating countries (99) and medals awarded (207 types of competitions). Athletes competed at the Stade du Rhone for nine days. The most numerous delegation in Lyon was the U.S. delegation (76 athletes), and the Russian team was the second – 66 athletes with lesions of the musculoskeletal system, visual impairment and learning difficulties. And the Chinese were represented by a total of 22 athletes.

“Very soon, Moscow will host the World Athletics Championships; this is an important and big event. We sincerely wish our athletes success in carrying out this large-scale competition. We decided to get ahead to hold the championship a little bit earlier than the usual athletes,” Vladimir Lukin, the president of the Russian Paralympic Committee, Human Rights Ombudsman of the Russian Federation, says. “Our team won 53 gold medals, including 26 gold, 16 silver and 11 bronze medals. I think I’ll be right if I say that this is the best result for our athletics. The fact is that, of course, Paralympic sport has quite a lot of very serious and important results, but, as always happens in such cases, athletics is the most basic thing along with swimming and, of course, the success of athletics largely predetermines the future results of the team during the period, which is the next pre-Olympic period to Rio de Janeiro.”

Speaking about rivals, Lukin noted that “second place was taken by the U.S. team: 52 medals, including 17 gold, 18 silver and 17 bronze ones. As you can see, the number of medals - not by much, and gold medals - a significant amount, are an advantage compared to our regular track and field competitors. In third place there is the team of Brazil, it is necessary to pay very close attention to it, because Brazil will host the next Paralympic Games, like the Olympics, and usually the team that is preparing to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games does especially important, serious work, so further progress of Brazil can be easily predicted in the future year, and we should be properly vigilant. Brazil got 40 medals: 16 gold, 10 silver and 14 bronze.”

Commenting on the failure of China, Lukin stated: “The team of China, which, as you may remember, has taken a very positive first place in the team standings at the Paralympic Games in London and had excellent results in athletics, ranked only sixth place. Something is happening to our Chinese colleagues, and as a result they are raised, when they host the Olympics, and are "blown off" when the Olympics are in another place. This championship was attended by over 1,000 athletes from 90 countries, so it is a very respectable competition.”