Du Preez wins Team SA’s third medal at Paralympics

Hand-cyclist Pieter du Preez has won SA’s third medal at the Paralympics in Paris, taking bronze in the men’s H1 individual time trial on Wednesday.

He negotiated the 14.1km course in 36min 07.05sec, finishing behind Italian Fabrizio Cornegliani (34:50.45) and Maxime Hordies of Belgium (35:11.13).

There were two African records in the pool, but no medals for SA on Tuesday,

SA’s two other medals are Mpumelelo Mhlongo’s T44 100m gold and Louzanne Coetzee’s T11 1,500m silver.

SA was represented in three sports on the day — swimming, athletics and boccia.

Christian Sadie reached the final of the S7 100m backstroke, where he finished fifth in 1:13.03 after reacting best at the start.

Gold and silver went to the Ukrainian duo of Yurii Shenhur (1:09.51) and Andrii Trusov (1:10.42).

Both Kat Swanepoel and Nathan Hendricks swam new African records.

“Super happy, I’m an IM [individual medley] swimmer and a fly swimmer so it’s not something we’ve been training for,” Sadie said.

“But it went really well so I’m super happy. I didn’t know how close I was, but apparently my coach said it was close, so I’m really happy. It was a good day.”

Swanepoel said: “It was just an amazing experience to be in that arena and representing our country.

“Unfortunately I’m not through to the finals, but am super proud to have finished the race despite dislocating my shoulder in the middle of the race.”

How SA fared:

ATHLETICS

Women’s 200m, T64 first round (10.36am): Tezna Abrahams ran a personal best 31.17 in finishing fifth in her heat, but not progressing to the evening final

Women’s 400m, T37 final: Sheryl James finished fourth in 1:06.88 and Liezel Gouws was fifth in 1:08.33. Gold went to Ukraine’s Nataliia Kobzar (1:00.92), who held off China’s Fenfen Jiang, the race favourite, who took silver in 1:01.88

BOCCIA

Mixed pairs, BC3 Pool D: Karabo Morapedi and Elanza Jordaan lost to Brazil 7-0

Mixed pairs, BC3 Pool D: Karabo Morapedi and Elanza Jordaan lost to Greece 10-0

SWIMMING

Men’s 100m backstroke, S7 heats: Christian Sadie finished third in his heat in 1:14.82 and progressed to the evening final sixth fastest, but only 0.45 seconds off third place.

Men’s 100m backstroke, S7 final: Christian Sadie went quicker than he had in the morning and his time of 1:13.03 saw him place fifth

Men’s 200m IM, SM13 heats: Nathan Hendricks finished fourth in his heat in 2:18.36, which qualified him eighth for the evening final

Men’s 200m IM, SM13 final: Nathan Hendricks finished seventh in an African record 2:17.15

Women’s 50m backstroke, S5 heats: Kat Swanepoel produced an African record 49.63 but missed out on a place in the final.