Lyon 2013 - Day four preview

Oliveira ran 10.77 last month, smashing American Blake Leeper’s world record, and the two rivals will go head-to-head at 19:16 (CET).

Three men’s sprint finals for different classes of leg amputees will take centre stage on the fourth day of the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France with the world record under serious threat in each race.

First-up at 15:54 CET live on ParalympicSport.TV will be the men’s 200m T42, a final that Great Britain’s Richard Whitehead qualified fastest for on Monday. Whitehead clocked a championship record 24.49 in his semi-final and is confident the world record could go. However, after seeing Whitehead false start at last month’s IPC Athletics Grand Prix Finals, Australian Scott Reardon and Germany’s Heinrich Popow will be ready to pounce should the Paralympic and defending world champion put a foot wrong.

Brazil’s Alan Oliveira Fonteles, the 100m world-record holder who ran a blistering 20.66 seconds 200m on Sunday, will be looking for the sprint double at 19:16 when he goes in the 100m T43 final for double below knee leg amputees. Oliveira ran 10.77 last month, smashing American Blake Leeper’s world record, and the two rivals will go head-to-head at 19:16 (CET).

The final 100m of the day for leg amputees is men’s T44 class. In the semi-finals Paralympic champion Jonnie Peacock ran 10.87, his second fastest ever time, but was trumped by Richard Browne of the USA’s world record of 10.83. Paralympic silver medallist Browne said in the lead-up to Lyon that he wanted to knock Peacock off his pedestal and at 19:22 CET, he will get his chance.

Other contenders for the T44 title will include Browne’s teammates - new 200m world champion Jarryd Wallace, who set a personal best 11.15 to qualify, and defending world champion Jerome Singleton who described his semi-final as “comfortable.” South Africa’s London 2012 bronze medallist Arnu Fourie should also not be discounted after running 11.27, a time that would have won him gold at the last World Championships in New Zealand.

Ahead of Lyon 2013 Brazil’s multi Paralympic and world champion Terezinha Guilhermina said she wanted to run the 100m T11 under 12 seconds for the first time. She was disappointed with her qualifying time of 12.47 but can set that right in the final which will feature two other Brazilian athletes and an Angolan.

Two American athletes looking to win multiple world titles in Lyon will aim to add to their medal collection on Tuesday. Tatyana McFadden, who has already won 200m and 5,000m T54 titles, will race in the 800m final, whilst the new 800m T52 world champion Raymond Martin will contest the 100m, a race he says will be his most difficult.

Australia’s Evan O’Hanlon will start his campaign for 200m T38 gold in the evening when he goes in the heats whilst Finland’s Leo Pekka Tahti, the four-time Paralympic champion, will race over the same distance, only this time in the T54 class.

Two silver medallists from Monday - "Swiss Silver Bullet" Marcel Hug and Namibian Johanna Benson – will aim to put their disappointment of missing out on gold behind them when they race in the 5,000m T54 and 100m T37 heats, respectively.

Also in action on Tuesday, a day that will see 23 medal events contested, will be the winner of the 200m T46 final in Brazil’s Yohannson Nascimento. He will run in the morning's 100m T46 heats and he will be joined over that distance by Russia’s Paralympic champion Margarita Goncharova who will run in the women’s T38 heats.