by Stuart Weir
Walid Ktila, photo courtesy of IPC Athletics
This is the final column that Stuart Weir did on the 2015 IPC World Athletics Champs on November 2, 2015. I had missed the column and am just catching up.
Stuart Weir covered the World Champs in Doha, Qatar for eleven days, and provided us some great columns.
This was the first time that RunBlogRun has covered IPC events, and with the warm response we recieved from you, our readers, we will be adding IPC coverage of upcoming events.
It is a total mystery to me why there is so little coverage in the U.S. Perhaps that lack of interest by NBC, the Olympic broadcaster is part of what is missing. So, if you, dear readers, want more on IPC events, then facebook and tweet friends at the Peacock broadcasting network on the need to show IPC coverage.
So how do you sum up 10 days of amazing competition? Let’s begin by acknowledging some great performances culminating in 54 new world records.
Tunisia’s Walid Ktila clinched an incredible fourth world title on the final day of competition, becoming the most successful athlete of the championships with victory in the 200m T34.The 30-year-old made it a ‘double quadruple’ as he repeated his winning performance from two years ago with victories over 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m.
Not far behind was Cuiqing Liu of China. With already three individual golds already under her belt, she raced home in the fourth leg of the women’s 4x100m T11-13 relay to seal gold for China and her own fourth gold.
It was great to see teenagers shining. Fourteen year old Isis Holt of Australia took two gold medals in the sprints beating 15 year old Maria Lyle in the 100 and 200. Another 14 year-old, Kare Adenegan took two bronzes. Back to school for the trio next week.
It was great to see the increase in the number of women competing, including Moslem women. I had planned to write an article bemoaning the lack of African athletes – until I counted over 100 athletes from 15 countries. Tunisia did best with 15 medals including 11 gold.
And a highly emotional Marcio Miguel Da Costa Fernandes shed tears of joy on the podium as the Cape Verde national anthem was played for the first time at an IPC Athletics World Championships. The 32-year-old won the men’s javelin F44 with an African record of 56.24m.
In some events an athlete dominates an event, looking invincible. In non-disability athletics, they whisper: “Is she on drugs?” Here they say, “Is he in the correct classification?” It cam be a bit like the club golfer who wins the monthly medal, has his handicap cut and never wins again!
The worst moment of the week was the disqualification of Kadeena Cox, (GB) and Francois-Elie (France) in the T37 200 metres for being one minute late in the call room. This unduly harsh decision seemed to serve no useful purpose
I thought Qatar hosted well. The heat was a bit oppressive in the late morning but was very pleasant in the evening session. The only thing Qatar failed to deliver was spectators.
