The second of four days of para-cycling road competitions in Tokyo saw the world’s best para-cyclists battle for six gold medals around the Fuji International Speedway circuit on a wet and grey day.
What a finish. What a race. The men’s H5 79.2km road race will live long in the memory for the exploits of one man: Mitch Valize. The 26-year-old Dutch rider seemingly came from nowhere down the home straight to pip France’s Loïc Vergnaud, the result decided by a photo finish. Incredibly, Valize hit an advertising hoarding on the final lap but dug deep and came back for an unlikely but amazing win.
It was a mighty comeback after nearly two-and-a-half hours of brutal racing, especially after Vergnaud had broken clear of Valize and his countryman Tim de Vries approaching the final bend. However, Valize was not to be under-estimated: the reigning H5 road race UCI World Champion had dominated the H5 time trial just 24 hours earlier.
Over the final 400-500m, Valize overcame a deficit of more than 50 metres to stimulate wild celebrations in the Dutch camp. Ten seconds further back, De Vries took bronze behind a disappointed Vergnaud.
French disappointment soon turned into French jubilation as Florian Jouanny (1:49:36) stormed to gold in the men’s H1-2 road race. After winning bronze the day before in the time trial, the 29-year-old beat Italy’s Luca Mazzone by over 4mins with Spain’s Sergio Garrote Munoz a further minute back in third.
Jouanny always looked in control, taking the lead early and extending it with every passing metre. After the race, French para-cycling team manager Laurent Thirionnet reflected on Jouanny’s success: “This is a milestone result as the two guys he beat have been flying for the past two years. He had an exceptional race.”
Jouanny’s gold is France’s fourth for para-cycling at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games after those of Alexandre Léauté and Dorian Foulon in the Izu Velodrome last week, plus yesterday’s tandem time trial triumph of Alexandre Lloveras and Corentin Ermenault.
Thirty-three years after her maiden Paralympic Games appearance, the timeless Jeanette Jansen is still competing. And competing successfully after winning gold in the women’s H1-4 road race. The 53-year-old Dutch legend completed the 26.3km course in 56:15mins – 6secs ahead of Germany’s Annika Zeyen and 9secs clear of America’s Alicia Dana.
The result gave Jansen the 10th Paralympic medal of her long and distinguished career, which included time trial bronze last week. You have to go back to the Seoul 1988 Paralympic Games for Jansen’s first medals: three golds in athletics. She added two silver and a bronze medal in athletics at Barcelona 1992 before taking up wheelchair basketball and winning silver at Atlanta 1996. She retired after the Athens 2004 Games but returned as a hand-cyclist at Rio 2016 where she won bronze. Don’t bet against Jansen returning for Paris 2024!
The redoubtable Oksana Masters won her second gold medal of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in the women’s H5 66km road race, adding to her H4-5 time trial gold. The 32-year-old American finished in 2:23:39, over 3mins ahead of China’s Bianban Sun. Italy’s Katia Aere won bronze.
Masters’ victory ensured her 10th Paralympic medal but not solely in the summer Paralympics – seven of those medals, including two golds, came at the winter Paralympics. Masters’ life story is incredible. She was born in the Ukraine three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with severe physical defects caused by the radiation.
She was orphaned from birth. At seven years old, she was adopted by an American single mother. By 13 years old, she’d had to have both legs amputated. That was 2002. Fast-forward to 2021 and Masters has written her own chapter in the Paralympic history books.
Read more about Masters’ story here.
In pouring rain, Jetze Plat chased and captured his third gold of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games after a dominant performance during the second half of the men’s H4 79.2km road race. Plat and Austria’s Thomas Fruehwirth shadowed each other for the first 40km before 30-year-old Dutch rider Plat rode away to win in a time of 2:15:13. Fruehwirth won his second silver of the Games in 2:20:56. In an equally competitive battle between Austria’s Alexander Gritsch and Switzerland’s Fabian Recher, bronze went to Gritsch in 2:22:38.
Plat’s a sporting chameleon, effortlessly transitioning between hand-cycling and triathlon. He won paratriathlon gold and the H5 road race bronze at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. When we spoke to Plat at the end of 2019, he told us: “As long as I qualify in both sports, I’m looking for a minimum of two gold medals over the three events I’m looking to compete in at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.”
He qualified and, after winning the paratriathlon on Sunday and the H4 time trial yesterday, Plat’s gone one better than he’d hoped for.
The final event of day two of the road racing saw arguably the greatest event of the day, the H3 79.2km road race, with a competition that proved age is no barrier, the podium coming in at 155 years old.
It was the youngest of the trio, 40-year-old Ruslan Kuznetsov from the RPC, who won gold in 2:34:35. But only just, as a late sprint by 63-year-old Swiss rider Heinz Frei nearly took Kuznetsov on the line. Fifty-two-year-old Austrian Walter Ablinger, who won the time trial earlier in the Games, added bronze to the H2 road race gold he won in London.
It was an amazing performance from the RPC athlete who surprised all after finishing only 7th in the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships earlier in the year. He broke with just over a lap to go but Frei and Ablinger reeled in his lead before Kuznetsov went again. It seemed gold was a formality before Frei found another gear down the final straight. But Kuznetsov sensed danger and held off the Swiss rider, who won the gold medal in this race back in 2008 and first competed at the Paralympics back in 1984.
Tomorrow sees the penultimate day of the para-cycling schedule at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games with a further five gold medals on offer.
C – Cyclist: conventional bike with some minor adaptations
T – Tricycle: three-wheeled bike
B – Blind: tandem
H – Handbike
Each group is divided into different sport classes depending on the severity of the handicap