IPC Athletics World Championships
19-29 July

Day one preview – Lyon 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships

• 17 gold medals up for grabs as Lyon 2013 get underway. • Big names competing including Cockroft, Hug, McFadden, Martin and Smyth 19 Jul 2013
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A picture of a woman in a wheelchair during an athletics race

Great Britain's Hannah Cockroft competing in the women's 200m - T34 final at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

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By IPC

The busiest athlete of the day will most probably be USA’s Tatyana McFadden who will start her campaign to win seven gold medals by competing in the heats of the women’s 200m and 1,500m T54 events.

The first day of action at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France on Saturday (20 July) will see 17 medal events take place, seven of which will be contested during the morning session, whilst all events will be live-streamed via www.ParalympicSport.TV.

Over 1,000 athletes from more than 90 countries are in Lyon for the biggest gathering of international athletes since London 2012 and the event will get underway with medal events in the men’s shot put F12, men’s javelin F57/58 and women’s discus F11/12.

The afternoon session will start at 15:30 (CET) and one of the headliners will be Great Britain’s two-time Paralympic champion Hannah Cockroft who will be aiming to retain her 200m T33/34 world title.

Cockroft, 20, is the 200m world record holder and, like in London last year, will be looking to kick-start Great Britain’s medals campaign.

In the field there will be a lot of attention on the men’s high jump T42/44, an event that saw an extremely close finish at last year’s Paralympics and captivated an 80,000 strong capacity crowd in the Olympic Stadium.

Although Fiji’s high jump F42 Paralympic champion Iliesa Delana is not competing in Lyon, India’s Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda and Poland’s Lukasz Mamczarz - the pair who won silver and bronze respectively at London 2012 - will both be looking to claim the world title.

After winning four gold medals as an 18 year old at London 2012 in the T52 class, USA’s Raymond Martin is looking to win five world titles in Lyon. His first attempt will come in the 1,500m final, an event that was not included in last year’s Paralympics.

The final event of the day will be the men’s 10,000m final which will see Switzerland’s Marcel Hug, the world record holder over the distance, looking to retain the world title he won back in 2011. With Great Britain’s Paralympic champion David Weir missing in Lyon, the ‘Swiss Silver Bullet’ will be confident of winning more than just one world title this time round.

Also making their first appearances at the Championships on Saturday will be the world’s fastest Paralympian Jason Smyth of Ireland and USA’s world record holder David Prince – both will race in their respective 200m semi-finals in the T13 and T44 classes.

The busiest athlete of the day will most probably be USA’s Tatyana McFadden who will start her campaign to win seven gold medals by competing in the heats of the women’s 200m and 1,500m T54 events.

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.

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