Paris 2024 Paralympics | Para cycling track : Marie Patouillet earns first medal for France, Caroline Groot wins the gold
Caroline Groot (Netherlands) became the first Para athlete to win a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympics in Para Cycling Track C4C5 500m-time trial. French athlete Marie Patouillet finished in second place and the Canadian Kate O'Brien earned the bronze.
Host country France won its first medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympics this Thursday in the first medal event of the Games. Marie Patouillet finished in second place in the women's C4C5-500m time trial in Para cycling track. The Para athlete from Netherlands, Caroline Groot won the first gold medal, finishing more than one second ahead of the French woman.
Even though Patouillet had a rough start, being 0.70s behind halfway, the Para cyclist managed to finish fast to beat the Canadian Kate O'Brien. The Versailles native's lead was threatened by Kadeena Cox but the C4 world record holder fell down just a few meters after the start.
Golden day for Groot
Groot, who established a new world record today in the C5 category during the qualifiers (35.390s), won her first ever Paralympic gold medal. In the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, she finished in third place in the C4C5-500m time trial event behind Kate O'Brien and Kadeena Cox. Since, she won three World championships (2022, 2023, 2024).
Other results of the day
Right after the women's 500m C4C5 time trial, the men's and women's C1-3 3000m individual pursuit races were both won by Chinese Para cyclists Li Zhangyu first became a Paralympic champion, beating his compatriot Liang Weicong in the final while Ricardo Ten Argiles (Spain) earned the bronze medal.
Wang Xiaomei also won gold and set a new world record with a 3:41.692 performance, beating the previous WR she established this morning in the qualifiers. Daphne Schrager (Great Britain) won the first silver medal for her country and Flurina Rigling (Switzerland) finished third.
Netherlands won another gold medal. Tristan Bangma beat Para cyclist Stephen Bate (Great Britain) in the men's B 4000m individual pursuit final. It's the first Paralympic title won by Bangma, only 26 years old. Lorenzo Bernard (Italy) finished third.