The Catalan swimmer Miguel Luque and the Valencian Enrique Alhambra gave the first medals in the pool to the Spanish delegation present at the Paralympic Games in Paris this Thursday by winning bronze medals in the 50-meter breaststroke SB3 and the 100-meter butterfly S13 events.
La Défense already saw the first successes of Spanish Paralympic swimming, which is usually the ‘engine’ in the medal table. It had many finalists in the afternoon and took a good haul, surely because most of them did not swim in their most favorite events.
Yes, Miguel Luque did, in the 50m SB3 breaststroke, in which he has not left the podium for 24 years and became the first Spaniard to win a medal in seven consecutive Games, and the Catalan, a veteran of the team, was accompanied by one of the promising youngsters, Enrique Alhambra, who made his debut in the Games at the age of 20 with a first bronze medal.
The Catalan, a swimmer with a physical disability, once again demonstrated that this is his favourite event, in which he has not failed to make it to the podium since Sydney 2000, when he was proclaimed champion, a gold that he was able to repeat four years later in Athens. In Beijing he dropped two steps on the podium, but remained among the best, and in London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo he won three silver medals.
And that predilection in this event once again stood out to overcome even the shoulder problems that he has gone through in this cycle, including surgery. Luque did not have to go through the morning heats this time and perhaps did not have the necessary contact. He did not need it in a final in which the Japanese Takayuki Suzuki made the gold very expensive and where there was a hard fight for the rest of the medals.
The veteran Catalan swimmer was always well placed and although he could not fight for the silver, which went to the Italian Efrem Morelli, the other swimmer (49.41) along with the winner (48.04) to go under 50 seconds, he did hold up well in the head-to-head with the rest of his rivals. Luque touched the wall in 50.52, 21 hundredths faster than the South Korean Giseong Jo. Vicente Gil, the other Spanish finalist in the event
Shortly after it was the turn of Enrique Alhambra, a swimmer with a visual disability and less expert in these competitions, but who did not waste his opportunity in the 100-meter butterfly, thanks above all to an excellent final.
The Valencian had entered the fight for the medals after finishing fourth fastest in the heats (57.65), but in the final he ‘flew’ across the pool. He finished fourth in the first 50 metres, three tenths behind the Ukrainian Oleksii Virchenko, but then he devoured him while his rival lost steam to take the bronze (56.27), behind the Belarusian Ihar Boki (54.13) and the Frenchman Alex Portal (54.38). Juan Ferrón finished seventh.
TERESA PERALES GETS IN THE ‘HEAT’
Of the other finals of this first day in the pool, the first of the award-winning Teresa Perales stood out, who swam the 100-meter backstroke S2, a test that served to make contact with La Défense and where she finished in fifth position, also beating the Spanish record with 2:37.53 and being able to check the fitness of her possible rivals for the 50.
“I have to admit that this morning I was already super happy with the time I had set. I came in with 2:45, which was my best time since I was S2 and the Spanish record holder, and I finished with a 2:37, I am very happy, above all, with the sensations,” said Perales after the test.
The Aragonese was left “with a good taste in her mouth” to try on Saturday to put “the icing on the cake” and celebrate it with all those “many people behind the medals.” “There is a lot of work behind it and I had a great time, I enjoyed it a lot and I feel very proud,” she said.
In addition, Toni Ponce was fourth, far from the podium, in the 200 freestyle S5 where Luis Huerta was sixth, and Jacobo Garrido and Nuria Marquès were also fifth in their respective finals of the 400 freestyle S9, while María Delgado finished sixth in the 100 butterfly S13. Miguel Ángel Navarro, the first Spanish swimmer in the Games in the S1 class, finished in an excellent sixth position.
(by EUROPA PRESS special correspondent, Ramón Chamorro)
