Gold again: Canadian wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos back on the Paralympics podium

Brent Lakatos took the gold.

The experienced wheelchair racer from Dorval in the state of Quebec already has a number of Paralympic medals, but since he did not receive quite enough gold, the 44-year-old went on to Paris.

Lakatos won the men's 800 metres T53 on Thursday, his 13th medal in his sixth Paralympic Games and his second gold medal after his first in 2016.

“Oh my God, it's been eight long years and so many silver medals,” Lakatos said after his race. “It's so nice to finally be back. We're going to sing O Canada and it's a really great feeling.”

Lakatos won his second medal at the Stade de France after silver in the 400 metres.

In Tokyo he won the silver medal four times and finished behind the Thai Pongsakorn Paeyo over 100, 400 and 800 meters.

“Tokyo, I won so many silver medals. I wasn't happy with that. Not really,” Lakatos said. “If I was going to stop, I wanted to try to get gold again, and that's why I'm back here.”

Paeyo beat Lakatos by just over a quarter of a second in the 400-meter race on Sunday.

Lakatos' tactics in the 800-meter race kept the Thai behind him. The Canadian had the final sprint under control and won by just under a second.

“A lot of planning. The Canadian support team is great. We had a great strategy,” Lakatos said. “We wanted to come out and control the race in lane 1 and not only did I manage to do that, but I was able to block Paeyo between the lane and my chair and not let him out until the final sprint.”

“We were able to implement the plan we had come up with.”

His time of 1:37.32 seconds was well under his 2019 world record of 1:31.69, but Lakatos was the only man in the final to stay under 1:38. Paeyo crossed the finish line in 1:38.26 and Brian Siemann of the United States in 1:38.44.

Lakatos suffered a stress fracture in his rib at the end of May and had to fight against time to get back into shape.

“The timing was really bad,” he said. “I actually had seven weeks to get fit again. I was able to get back to where I was before the injury.”

As at the Olympic Games, winners will ring a bell engraved with the Paris 2024 logo on the track. It will be hung in the bell tower of Notre Dame once the 861-year-old cathedral has been restored after the 2019 fire.

“Part of history. That was really cool,” Lakatos said. “The lady asked if I wanted to ring the bell. I just said, 'Yeah, I do.' I was in there and I put all my weight into it. I was swinging back and forth with the force.”

The T53 classification applies to athletes who can use their arms but have little or no trunk movement. Lakatos suffered paralysis at the age of six from a blood clot in his spine when he slipped against boards while ice skating.

Lakatos carried the Canadian flag at the closing ceremony in Tokyo, just hours after finishing fourth in his fifth race, the men's marathon, after winning the 2020 London Marathon.

Lakatos has scaled back his training schedule somewhat, removing the marathon from his Paris programme. He admitted that the 5k on Saturday and the 400 on Sunday were “a bit too much” and that a few days off before the 800 would have done him good.

“The 800 is a really fun race. It requires a bit of everything. I have good endurance from marathons and five-thousanders and the necessary speed at the start,” said Lakatos.

He is married to the British Stefanie Reid, who won silver in the long jump at the 2012 Paralympics in London. The couple lives in Loughborough, England.

Reid is a co-host of the Paralympics on CBC with Scott Russell and her husband said he can't wait to hear what she has to say about his race.

Given his track record so far, Lakatos did not want to say whether the 800 metres was his Paralympic swan song.

“I've said after every game since 2008 that I'm going to end my career. But it hasn't happened yet,” he said. “I don't think I'll say anything about it now.”

– This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 5, 2024.