Jonnie Peacock has insisted he is still the man to beat in T64 sprinting and says he will compete at a fifth Paralympics in Los Angeles, despite finishing way off an electric pace in the 100m final in Paris.
On a night of exhilarating blade racing, Costa Rica’s Sherman Guity Guity won gold in the T64 class with a Paralympic record time of 10.65sec, 0.13 of a second quicker than he managed in winning silver in Tokyo three years ago. He was followed by Maxcel Manu of Italy (10.76) and the 2021 champion Felix Streng of Germany (10.77) in a show of increasing strength in this showcase field.
For Britain’s Peacock, however, there was disappointment and a performance that was way off the medal places. He finished fifth in a time of 10.91sec, 0.12sec slower than he ran in Tokyo, and faded visibly after a strong opening 60m. However, he still talked a good game afterwards. In fact if his racing was as good as his talking, he would surely have been on the podium.
Peacock blamed his performance on a poor season during which he adjusted the position of his prosthetic blade too many times in a hunt for improved performance. He also acknowledged the strength of the field and made the case for his own superiority over it.
“I knew after the heats it was going to be a very tall order to try and come away with something shiny here,” he said. “But we’ve got a great race which I’m really proud to be a part of. I love it, if I’m honest. It’s not one of those events where I can come in at 80% and still take away a gold medal. You’ve got to come in at 100% to take away a medal in this event.
“I’m not going to lie: 2017 Jonnie would have wiped the floor with these boys. And you guys need to remember that. I am better than these people. It’s me versus me.
“I’ve got in my own way. It’s not that these guys have beaten me. I’ve beaten myself this year. I’ve been barely breaking sub-11 all season, but I put a 60 [metres] together today that I’m very happy with. Give me a few years. I’m not going anywhere, but I am finally on the way back.”
Peacock said he feared that “we’ve let the Paralympics die” in the years running up to the Paris Games and called on Michael Johnson, who has established a new international event series called the Grand Slam Track league, to add para-athletics to its roster. “Michael Johnson could help us out, absolutely,” he said. “If he wants to talk about it … I’m pretty sure what we do is athletics. So get us in an athletics competition.”
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Johnson’s eyes might well have lit up at the performance of his fellow American Ezra Frech, who won gold in the T63 category, another blade‑racing event. Frech edged out Daniel Wagner, of Denmark, and the Brazilian world record holder Vinícius Gonçalves, in a time of 12.06sec, with just 0.1sec between the top five runners.
“This was supposed to be a warm‑up for the long jump,” said Frech, who whipped the crowd at the Stade de France into a frenzy upon victory. “I felt like everybody was sleeping on me and trust me when you walk into a stadium of 70,000 people, [you] tense up, everyone chokes, they get nervous. They don’t know what to do, the lights are a little bit too bright. But the lights are never too bright for me.”
