ANANIAS Shikongo capped a historic day for Namibia at the Paralympic Games in Rio on Thursday when he won the gold medal in the Men’s T11 200m final.
Shikongo gave a brilliant performance to win the race in a new Paralympic Games record of 22,44 seconds, which was just 0,03 seconds outside the world record.
Brazil’s Felipe Gomes came second in 22,52 seconds, while another Brazilian Daniel Silva came third in 23,04.
Shikongo and his guide Even Tjiviju didn’t have the best of starts and at the halfway mark they were lying second to Gomes.
Shikongo, however, stepped up a gear and powered down the home straight to pass Gomes and take the gold medal in irrepressible style.
It was Shikongo’s second medal after he won bronze in the T11 100m final last Sunday, and Namibia’s fourth medal in total.
Earlier on Thursday, Johannes Nambala won silver in the Men’s T13 400m final after being pipped to the line by Mohamed Amguoun of Morocco in another fantastic race. Both athletes smashed Amguoun’s previous world record of 47,83 seconds, with Amguoun winning gold in 47,15 and Nambala silver in 47,21 seconds.
Last Friday Nambala won another silver medal when he came second in the Men’s T13 final.
By winning gold, Shikongo joined Johanna Benson in the history books as the only Namibian to win gold at the Paralympic Games.
Benson won Namibia’s first gold medal at the 2012 Paralympic Games in the Women’s T37 200m.
