Sprinter Athanasios Ghavelas defended his gold medal in the 100m (T11) at the Paris Paralympic Games, repeating his victory from Tokyo and becoming the first Greek to win gold in two consecutive Games.
The Greek sprinter, guided by Giannis Nyfantopoulos in the final, clocked 11.02 seconds to claim the gold medal once again.
Athanasios Ghavelas and the early loss of sight
Ghavelas was a picture of health until the age of ten. It was then, during his school days, that both he and his teachers noticed a concerning change.
“I was reading in class, but it was starting to be so difficult. And the teacher thought I was a liar because weeks before I was so fast, and she didn’t understand. And I could never look her in the eyes either. I lost my central vision quickly, then the peripheral. We tried to find what was going on because I was only 10 years old,” he told Paralympic.org recently.
Ghavelas’ early loss of sight presented a significant challenge for both him and his family. However, with the support of his friends and the persistence of his ambitions, he emerged from this ordeal as the same determined young man.
“I was never going to stop anything. I loved sport, I followed sport. I wanted to do running, I wanted to do it well. The vision loss did not stop me, it didn’t stop my dreams or my focus. And when I was 15, I went to a track for school races, which is where I met my coach.
“And we are still together (eight years later). We had a conversation where he just asked what I wanted, and I said, ‘Make me a Paralympic champion’,” he was quoted as saying by Paralympic.org.
Greece wins 10 medals at the Paris Paralympic Games
Greece has now won 10 medals at the Paris Paralympics, including 2 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze.
Earlier in the week Thanasis Konstantinidis won in the shot put F32 category. Taking the green at the Stade de France, Konstantinidis climbed to the top with a new European record, bringing home Greece’s first gold in the 2024 Paralympic Games.
The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games is the 17th Summer Paralympic Games, an international multi-sport parasports event governed by the International Paralympic Committee, being held in Paris, France, from 28 August to 8 September 2024.
These games mark the first time Paris is hosting the Summer Paralympics and the second time that France is hosting the Paralympic Games, as Tignes and Albertville jointly hosted the 1992 Winter Paralympics.
