Portugal wins seven medals at the Paris2024 Paralympics
The country's performance was overshadowed by two positive doping controls.
Portugal concluded its participation in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games with seven medals.
Although the results equal those achieved 16 years ago, it’s necessary to go back to Athens 2004 to find an edition with two gold medals with Miguel Monteiro and Cristina Gonçalves being crowned Paralympic champions in the F40 shot put and BC2 boccia class, respectively.
With a group of 27 athletes, the smallest since the Seoul Games in 1988, Portugal added to the two golds, a silver - won by Sandro Baessa in the 1,500 metres T20 (visually impaired) - and four bronzes.
Two positive controls
On Tuesday, the Portuguese Paralympic Committee (CPP) revealed that Luís Costa, who won the bronze medal in the H5 class road cycling time trial in Paris, had a positive anti-doping test.
Luís Costa, 51, has been “provisionally suspended, with the legal deadline for the athlete to exercise his right to defence”.
In the same statement, the CPP said that it “repudiates any form of tampering with results and strives for clean and transparent sport”.
The head of Portugal's Mission to Paris 2024, Luís Figueiredo, told LUSA that, despite the suspension, this does not mean that the medals will be withdrawn for the time being, but that this could happen ‘after all the legal appeals available to the athlete have been exhausted’.
This was the second doping case in Portugal's mission to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, which ended on Sunday, after athlete Simone Fragoso was barred from taking part in the powerlifting event.
Winners
Diogo Cancela once again took Portuguese swimming to a Paralympic podium, 16 years after Beijing, winning the bronze in the 200 metres medley SM8, joining Djibrilo Iafa, who gave Paralympic judo its first medal with the bronze in the -73 kg tournament for the totally blind, Carolina Duarte, third in the 400 metres T13 (visually impaired), and cyclist Luís Costa in the H5 time trial also won the same medal.
The seven medals, three of which were won on the same day, almost overshadowed the doping case that ruled former Paralympic swimmer Simone Fragoso out of the powerlifting tournament, a sport in which Portugal was due to make its debut at Paris2024.
In athletics, the three podium places were joined by the appearances in the finals of Ana Filipe, seventh in the long jump T20, and Mamudo Baldé, who finished fifth with a new national record in the 100-metre T54 event for wheelchair athletes.
In Boccia, Paris2024 marked Portugal's return to the Paralympic podiums, after the sport failed to make a mark at Tokyo2020, something unprecedented since its debut in competitions in New York in 1984.
In the sport with the most national representatives at Paris2024, with seven, Cristina Gonçalves won, in her sixth participation in the Games, her first individual medal, after three podium finishes in previous editions in the team event of boccia, a sport exclusive to the Paralympic Games.
In the pool at the Paris La Defense Arena, Diogo Cancela's bronze was joined by six more diploma places, and in badminton Beatriz Monteiro repeated, in the SU5 tournament, the fifth place she achieved in Tokyo in 2021, when she competed at just 15 years old.
In the triathlon, the Portuguese debut was marked by Filipe Marques' fourth place in the PTS5 category, just 40 seconds behind the bronze, in a competition postponed for a day due to the poor quality of the water in the River Seine.
In cycling, Portugal returned to the medals, with Luís Costa, the oldest member of the delegation, winning bronze at the age of 51 in the H5 road time trial, for athletes competing on handbikes, and Telmo Pinão also securing a diploma in the 3,000-metre pursuit track event in class C1.
Canoeist Norberto Mourão, who won bronze in Tokyo 2020, leaves Paris 2024 with his best-ever result, but without having won the coveted medal, after finishing fourth in the 200-metre VL2 event.
The preparation contract-programme for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games had a total value of 9.2 million euros, and the grants paid to Paralympic athletes, as well as the prizes for winning medals, are the same as those paid to Olympic athletes, with gold worth a prize of 50,000 euros, silver 30,000 and bronze 20,000.
Portugal leaves Paris in 43rd place in the medal table, led by China, which won 220 medals, followed by Great Britain, with 124, and equalled its seventh best participation ever in the competition, in which it had 12 appearances.
List of Winners:
Miguel Monteiro, F40 Weight, Athletics
Cristina Gonçalves, Individuals BC2, Boccia
Sandro Baessa, 1500m T20, Atletismo
Diogo Cancela, 200m SM8, Swimming
Luis Costa, Time Clock H5, Cycling
Djibrilo Iafa, -73kg J1, Judo
Carolina Duarte, 400m T13, Athletics