Not one, but four Paralympians destroyed the 1,500-meter run-time that was set in Rio stunning audiences worldwide. The race was held Monday night where middle-distance runner, Abdellatif Baka from Algeria, emerged victoriously and claimed first place.
The Algerian clocked in a remarkable 3:49.29 beating the 1,500-meter time in the last Olympics and setting a new Paralympic world record. In the recently concluded Rio Olympics, Matthew Centrowitz - who won gold - only had a 3:50 time making Baka's run faster by 1.7 seconds.
"It wasn't easy to get this gold medal," Abdellatif Baka said. "I've been working one or two years nonstop, and it's been very, very hard for me."
If that isn't impressive enough the other three Paralympians who came after Baka also clocked in a faster time than Centrowitz, making their run worthy of gold had one of them competed in the Rio Olympics.
Amazing story out of the Paralympics https://t.co/OhpooZkiGa congrats to Fouad Baka pic.twitter.com/u2oaQPNY2s
— Cameron Spencer (@cjspencois) September 13, 2016
Following Baka was Tamiru Demisse of Ethiopia clocking in with a run-time of 48.49 seconds giving him the silver medal, while bronze was snatched by Henry Kirwa of Kenya with a run-time of 49.59. Incredibly, the fourth athlete was Abdelatiff's brother, Fouad, who just missed out a spot on the podium with his time being 3:49.84 but was still faster compare to Centrowitz run.
The T13 final was a tactical race between the contenders as they started out with a slow pace but quickly shifted gears once they were on the final lap.
The disability of the athletes is visual impairment which falls in the T13 class. T11 and T12 are the two other classes in the category, with the lower number indicating a more severe impairment.
The current world record for the race is 3:26:00 and was set by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj in 1998. But this doesn't diminish what the four Paralympians have accomplished given that there were no wheelchairs or prosthetic racing blades involved when they ran.
See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?
