Belarusian paralympians topped swimming and fencing at Rio Paralympics on Monday, September 13.
Andrei Pranevich celebrated winning a gold medal for wheelchair fencing at Rio. The Belarusian beat Iraq’s world champion Ammar Ali by the narrowest of margins in the final, taking the title 15-14 after a tense exchange.
Prior to the Rio gold, the athlete from Polotsk won the European championship. A year ago, he was third at the World Championship.
Another award was won is swimming by Uladzimir Izotau.
He captured his eluded Paralympic gold, winning the men’s 100m breaststroke SB12 in 1:06.82 – lowering the Paralympic record he set four years ago at London.
Azerbaijan’s Dzmitry Salei (1:08.80), runner-up at the 2015 Worlds, finished second. Ukraine’s Maksym Veraksa (1:09.00), gold medallist back at Beijing 2008, took home the bronze.
Belarus’ Paralympic team has thus reached 13th place in medal standings with 7 gold medals and two bronze awards.