Swim: Double gold in just six minutes: Taliso Engel and Elena Krawzow gave the German swimmers a golden evening at the Paralympics in Tokyo. World and European champion Engel won the 100 m breaststroke in a world record time of 1: 02.97 minutes and relegated David Henry Abrahams (USA) to second place with just under one and a half seconds. Already in the morning, the visually impaired 19-year-old had broken the old world best time in 1: 03.53 minutes in the starting class SB13.
Even Krawzow didn’t give the competition a chance over the same distance. The 27-year-old won in the women in the starting class SB13 after a strong race to catch up in 1: 13.46 minutes and was crowned Paralympics winner for the first time after silver in London and a disappointing fifth place in Rio. It was the first German swimmer gold medal since London 2012; there was no triumph in Rio.
Engel made the leap to the throne when he participated for the first time. Despite his world record in the run-up, he had held back with declarations of war. “The goal is still a medal. The main thing is to find a medal, which I don’t really care about at the moment,” he said. It became gold and that with a fabulous time of more than six tenths of a second below the old world record.
Table tennis: Björn Schnake and Thomas Rau won the fourth medal for the German table tennis players at the Paralympics in Tokyo. The Germans were clearly defeated in the semi-finals of the team competition in the combined starting class six and seven to the favored Chinese with 0: 2, but the duo still won the bronze medal. Third place is not played out in Japan.
In class three, Thomas Brüchle and Thomas Schmidberger play for the gold medal. The top seeded Germans easily won their semifinals against the Czech Republic 2-0. In the final on Thursday (11.30 a.m. CEST), the silver medal winners from Rio will meet China.
The favored Brüchle (Lindau) and individual silver medalist Schmidberger (Düsseldorf) already showed the Czechs the limits in a 3-0 double. In the singles, Brüchle made the final 3-1 perfect against Petr Svatos. Due to the seeding list, the DBS duo entered the semifinals with a bye.
Wheelchair basketball: The German wheelchair basketball players just missed the semifinals of the Paralympics. The team of national coach Nicolai Zeltinger lost against gold contenders Spain on Wednesday in Tokyo with 68:71 and was eliminated in the quarter-finals. André Bienek had the chance to equalize with a throw from distance seven seconds before the end, but the ball landed on the Spaniards after touching the basket. Thomas Böhme (16 points) and Bienek (13) were the most successful shooters for Germany.
To go biking: Annika Zeyen won the next Paralympics medal one day after her gold medal in the time trial. In the road race over 26.4 kilometers, the paraplegic Bonn woman landed on Wednesday in 56:21 minutes on the silver rank. Jennette Jansen from the Netherlands was six seconds faster on the former Formula 1 track at the foot of Mount Fuji. Bronze went to Alicia Dana (56:24) from the USA. In 2012, Zeyen had won gold in wheelchair basketball. She had postponed her wedding, which was actually planned for this summer.
Andrea Eskau has meanwhile missed her 16th medal. The handbiker from Magdeburg came fourth in the road race on Wednesday in 2:47:25 hours, almost 24 minutes behind. The American Oksana Masters was the Paralympic winner (2:23:39 hours). Silver went to the Chinese Bianbian Sun (2:26:50) ahead of Katia Aere (2:28:11) from Italy. The day before, Eskau came fifth in the individual time trial. The 50-year-old, who also competes as a biathlete and cross-country skier in winter, has won 15 Paralympics medals, eight of them gold.
Sport shooting: Natascha Hiltrop won the next German gold medal in Tokyo. The Rio runner-up kept her nerve in the dramatic heartbeat final with the air rifle over 10 meters and with the last shot saved a lead of 0.1 rings over the South Korean Park Jinho at the finish. With 253.1 rings, the 29-year-old set a new Paralympics record in the SH1 starting class. Hiltrop won the first gold for the German para sport shooters since Athens 2004, in the Asaka Shooting Range in Tokyo it was even the first medal for the team of the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS). The incomplete paraplegic athlete from SV Lengers had already finished second in the qualification. In Rio, the German model shooter was still missing a ring for a gold medal, even at world championships she never got past second place.
Swim: Taliso Engel swam a world record in the run-up to the Paralympics in Tokyo and has stoked hope for the first German swimming gold in nine years. The 19-year-old stayed with 1: 03.52 minutes over 100 meters chest six hundredths below the old record of the Ukrainian Oleksii Fedina, which had stood for eight years. The final will take place at 12 noon German time.
The visually impaired Angel from Middle Franconia, who starts for Leverkusen, traveled to Japan as European champion and second in the world rankings. Since Daniela Schulte’s victory in the 400 meter freestyle on September 7, 2012 in London, there has not been a single German swimming gold on 18 days of competition at the Paralympics. In 1996 in Atlanta, the DBS had won 19 gold medals. Medal contender Elena Krawzow also reached the finals on her favorite 100-meter breaststroke course. The Berliner goes into the final fight with a time of 1: 15.31 minutes as the fastest.
Athletics: Shot putter Mathias Schulze just missed a medal at the Paralympics. The 33-year-old hit the bronze medal at the 16-meter mark in his last throw at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium on Wednesday, but his attempt was declared invalid. “I’m as happy as a monkey and then I see the shitty red flag. At the moment it’s very, very sobering,” said Schulze dejectedly after the competition. He had previously achieved a personal best of 15.60 meters. Paralympic winner was the Canadian Greg Stewart (16.75 meters), ahead of the Russian Nikita Prokhorov (16.29) and the American Joshua Cinnamo (15.90).