Lyon 2013 - Day five preview

Francois-Elie has shown great form at the Championships and is thus far the only gold-medal winner from the host nation after taking 200m T37 gold on Monday (22 July).

Two French favourites – Mandy Francois-Elie and Marie-Amelie le Fur – will be in action on Wednesday (24 July), the fifth day of the IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France, when they compete in the 100m for T37 and T43/44 athletes, respectively.

Francois-Elie has shown great form at the Championships and is thus far the only gold-medal winner from the host nation after taking 200m T37 gold on Monday (22 July).

As the reigning Paralympic champion over 100m, she will be confident of doubling that number today, although she will face a hard race against her rival Johanna Benson of Namibia, the London 2012 silver medallist in this distance.

After winning long jump T44 silver on Tuesday (23 July) in front of a highly vocal home crowd, Le Fur will be excited to be competing again in the 100m T43/44. The world and Paralympic champion over this distance will race in the first semi-final and will come up against USA’s Beijing 2008 champion April Holmes.

The second semi-final will see the first glimpse of the Netherlands’ Marlou van Rhijn, who won 100m silver at last year’s Paralympics.

The “Blade Babe,” as she is known, has smashed the 100m T43 world record on a number of occasions this year, most recently last month when she ran 12.96 to become the world’s fastest female leg amputee.

One of the highlights of the morning session is likely to be the women’s 800m T52, which could be a straight race between two London 2012 champions in Belgium’s Marieke Vervoort, who won 100m gold last year and Canada’s Michelle Stilwell, the 200m champion.

Like France, Finland and Australia are also hoping to land their seconds gold medals of Lyon 2013.

For Australia, four-time Paralympic champion Evan O’Hanlon will start as favourite for victory in the 200m T38 whilst another four-time Paralympic champion, Leo-Pekka Tahti of Finland, will line up in the 200m T54. Tahti described his semi-finals as “easy” although he is likely to find today much harder, especially against Kenny van Weeghel of the Netherlands, who set a championship record in his semi-final

“Swiss Silver Bullet” Marcel Hug will be in action in the evening, hunting his third gold medal in the 5,000m T54 final. Hug so far has two golds - 400m and 10,000m - to his name as well as 800m silver. He will face a stiff challenge, however, from Japan’s Masayuki Higuchi, who set a personal best and championship record in the semi-final.

Victorious in a thrilling 200m T46 final on Monday, Brazil’s Yohansson Nascimento will look to compete the sprint double in the 100m and Russia’s T38 sprinter Margarita Goncharova will hope to improve on the 200m bronze she won on Monday when she starts in the 100m final, an event she is Paralympic champion in.

Ireland’s two gold medal winners from earlier in the week will be back in action as well. Michael McKillop, who broke the 800m T37 world record on his way to gold on Sunday will look to do the same in the 1,500m whilst his roommate Jason Smyth will take part in the 100m T13 semi-finals.

After watching the men’s 100m T43 and T44 finals, the world’s fastest Paralympian, Smyth, sent a tongue in cheek tweet which read: “An entertaining evening at the track tonight but I think it’s time to bring a bit more speed to #Lyon2013.”

A number of high-profile names will also take part in qualification rounds. The USA’s Tatyana McFadden will start her bid for a fourth gold of this event in the 1,500m T54 semis as will her teammate Raymond Martin in the 200m T52. Cuba’s world record holder Yundis Castillo will go in the 200m T46 and South Africa’s Ilse Hayes will run the 200m T13.

The 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships, featuring over 1,000 athletes from nearly 100 countries, runs through until Sunday 28 July. It is the biggest gathering of international athletes since London 2012 and is being streamed each day live via www.ParalympicSport.TV.

Live results can be found at the Lyon 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships website whilst updates and behind the scenes pictures can be found at Twitter.com/IPCAthletics and Facebook.com/IPCAthletics. More pictures can be found at Flickr.com/ipc-athletics-lyon2013.com.