As expected, prosthetic jumper Markus Rehm won his sixth title in a row at the Para Athletics World Championships in Paris on Friday (07/14/2023). He had to overcome some resistance.
The 34-year-old triumphed in the T64 starting class with 8.49 meters – and was once again unattainable for the competition: he was 1.10 meters ahead of second-placed Derek Loccident from the USA.
“I’m fine, it was a great competition“, said Rehm afterwards, “The World Cup record was the goal, I broke it. That was a nice foretaste of Paris 2024.”
“Really thrown off the concept”
However, the “great competition” did not apply to Rehm’s entire event. Changing wind conditions and the fact that Rehm had to wait for the start of a race on each of his last four attempts made the situation more difficult.
But even worse was the fall of the Greek Stylianos Malakopoulos, who has been his training partner in Leverkusen for a year. “That really knocked me out for a moment because it really didn’t look good”Rehm admitted in an interview with Sportschau: “I got really emotional at that moment. Because I was afraid he was really injured and we’ve become really good friends. I’ll call him as soon as I get out of here, but I’ve heard now that it’s not quite supposed to be that bad.”
Nerius is “super proud”
The trainer of the two, the former javelin throw world champion Steffi Nerius, was still under the impression of the pictures when Malakopoulos was wheeled out of the stadium.
“It was very nerve-wracking for all of us”said Nerius: “But I’m super proud of Markus, how he managed the situation. I can’t remember that he’s ever had such a difficult competition due to the circumstances.”
New Dream Destination: Vastness by Mike Powell
At the end of June, Rehm had improved his para world record to 8.72 meters. No long jumper without a disability has flown further for 14 years. Rehm recently proclaimed Mike Powell’s 32-year-old record of 8.95 as a new dream goal, and actually wanted to get closer in Paris. That didn’t work on Friday, but Rehm surpassed his own World Cup record from 2015 by nine centimeters.
The man from Leverkusen has been unbeaten in major para sport events since 2011. Since then he has not only won six World Championship titles in long jump, but also five European Championship triumphs and three gold medals at the Paralympics.
Three golds, two silvers
After its triumph in the Charlety Stadium, the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) now has eight medals (3x gold, 2x silver, 3x bronze).
In the morning, Mathias Schulze finished fifth in the shot put of the F46 starting class, just like at the Paralympics in Tokyo, missing a medal by half a meter.
World Cup goes until Monday
The Para Athletics World Championships, which will last until Monday, are a kind of dress rehearsal for the Paralympics next year (August 28 to September 8, 2024), which will also take place in the French capital.
At the previous World Championships in Dubai in 2019, the German team had won eleven precious metals in ninth place (7x gold, 2x silver, 2x bronze).