Russia’s Bychenok completes a hat-trick of wins in Beijing

Russia’s world champion biathlete Alexey Bychenok completed a hat-trick of wins on Sunday (24 April), the third day of the IPC Athletics Grand Prix in Beijing, China, with victory in the 200m T54.

The 29-year-old only switched over to wheelchair racing in 2015 and finished the year with a 200m bronze medal at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha, Qatar. This season he has started in great form and, after wins over 400m and 1,500m on Friday (22 April), he secured his third win in 25.95 seconds.

Bychenok was one of three Russian winners on the track on Sunday, a session that featured 19 different 200m races. His compatriots Vitalii Gritsenko (28.52), a T53 racer, won the men’s T51/53 and Veronika Doronina (38.92) was fastest in the women’s T34.

World lead times for 2016 were set by China’s Guohua Zhou (26.09) in the women’s T11, Yiting Shi (29.69) in the women’s T36 and Xinhan Fu (27.09) in the men’s T35.

Other winners for the host country included Zetan Fan (23.89) in the men’s T11, T38 sprinter Jianwen Hu (25.31) in the men’s T37/38, Xia Zhou (29.66), a T35 athlete, in the women’s T35/38 and Li Lu (26.71) in the women’s T46/47.

Non-Chinese winners were Papua New Guinea’s Joyleen Jeffrey (31.62) in the women’s T12, Chinese Taipei’s Yu Lien Chen (34.29) in the women’s T52/53/54, Japan’s Yusuke Terada (39.96) in the men’s T33/34, Uzbekistan’s Ulugbek Chariev (23.70) in the men’s T12 and Kazakhstan’s Islam Salimov (24.31) in the men’s T13.

The Malaysian duo of Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi Mohamad (25.58) and Solihim Mohd Nor Ahmad (23.90) won the men’s T36 and T42/46 races respectively.

In the final track event of the day, North Korea’s Chol Ung Kim (25:12.91) completed the men’s 5,000m T11.

Field events

The majority of the field events on the final day of the Grand Prix were shot put events and four Chinese athletes set world lead distances.

World bronze medallist Zhenya Chen (9.97m) now tops the world ranking in the men’s F40 class as does Yanzhang Wang (11.07m) in the men’s F34 class, Guofeng Kang (13.90m) in the men’s F42 and Fengju Zhang (7.55m) in the women’s F40.

There was also success for China through Wei Song (7.65m) in the men’s shot put F32, Zhiwei Xia (12.14m) in the men’s shot put F41, Yalong Zhao (1.80m) in the men’s high jump T46/47 and F34 thrower Lijuan Zou (19.80m) in the women’s javelin F34/54.

Non-Chinese winners in the field events were Sri Lanka’s Amila Warnakulasooriya (1.55m) in the men’s high jump T42, Vietnam’s F57 athlete Thi Hai Nguyen (20.40m) in the women’s javelin F55/57 and Malaysia’s F44 thrower Doriah Poulus (9.16m) in the women’s shot put F42/44.

The next IPC Athletics Grand Prix, the sixth of the season, will take place in Tempe, USA, between 13-14 May as part of the 2016 Desert Challenge Games.

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