PARIS: The first jump by national para athlete Jonathan Wong Kar Gee provided a ray of hope for the Malaysian athletics contingent that he would be able to secure at least a bronze in the men’s T12 long jump (physical disability) event at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games here today.
However, Argentine Fernando Vazquez’s final jump of 6.88 metres shattered his hopes of taking home a medal, surpassing the 6.85m mark of Kar Gee’s first attempt on the fourth day of athletics competition at the Stade de France.
The 33-year-old repeated his jump of 6.85m on his sixth and final attempt but the mark was only good to finish fourth overall out of six competitors as the gold medal went to Azerbaijan’s Said Najafzade, who jumped 7.27m, followed by Uzbekistan’s Donior Saliev (7.16m) for silver.
Today’s result saw Kar Gee improve his previous Paralympics performance after finishing sixth in the T13 (visually impaired) long jump event with a distance of 5.93m during his debut at the Tokyo 2020 edition.
The distance cleared today was however, way off compared to his personal best of 7.22m which was set at the 2018 China Open.
Yesterday, Malaysia secured their maiden medal in athletics after teammate Eddy Bernard clinched a bronze in the men’s 100m T44 (physical disability) event with a time of 11.58s which was also a new Asian record.
