Thai ace Prawat bids for eighth gold today

Thai ace Prawat bids for eighth gold today

Thailand's Prawat Wahoram (right) competes in the 5,000m T54 event at Tokyo 2020. (AFP photo)
Thailand's Prawat Wahoram (right) competes in the 5,000m T54 event at Tokyo 2020. (AFP photo)

Wheelchair racer Prawat Wahoram will be gunning for his eighth Paralympic gold medal at the Tokyo Games on Tuesday.

Prawat, Thailand's most decorated Paralympian with seven titles, will defend his crown in the 1,500m T54 title on Tuesday after cruising past the preliminary round on Monday.

The 40-year-old from Sa Kaeo has competed mainly in the T54 event since the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.

He will be motivated by his failure to defend his 5,000m title at Tokyo 2020 after finishing sixth.

Compatriot Putharet Khongrak was third in the event.

Putharet, 26, will also compete in the 1,500m T54 final this morning.

Under the National Sports Development Fund's bonus scheme for Paralympians, a champion will get 7.2 million baht, a silver winner 4.8 million baht, and a bronze medalist 3 million baht.

Thailand aimed to claim four to six gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympics.

The Kingdom won six gold, six silver and six bronze medals at Rio 2016.

So far, they have won one gold, one silver and three bronze medals at Tokyo 2020.

Flying Fish

Playing in the street as a three-year-old, Jiang Yuyan's life almost ended when she was run over by a dump truck.

Just 13 years later, she is rewriting swimming's record books and yesterday won her first Paralympics gold.

The injuries to the fun-loving toddler were so severe her right arm and leg were amputated, leaving her mother distraught.

"My good little girl was left disabled," Wang Zhifang told local media. "I thought the sky was falling. How would she spend her life?"

But by the age of 14 it had become clear. Her daughter, now nicknamed "Flying Fish", was breaking world records and gaining global fame in the pool.

And yesterday, at the tender age of 16 and the youngest member of China's powerful 256-strong team at Tokyo 2020, she fulfilled a dream by winning her first Paralympics gold medal in the S6 50m butterfly.

The sensation from Shaoxing smashed her own world record in the heats at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre before storming to gold later in the final.

"This is my first Paralympic experience and in terms of my personal goals, it's a self-confidence boost," the teenager told AFP straight after her winning swim.

"Of course, it's very exciting. But most of all, I think it's the beginning of the next chapter of my life."

Jiang was encouraged by her mother to try swimming five years after her horror accident in Shaoxing.

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