PARIS – Canada bumped its medal count to 13 along with a second gold medal on Day 6 of the Paralympic Games.
Victoria’s Cody Fournie struck gold on the track to give Canada its second consecutive day with a top spot on the podium. Canada went the first four days in Paris without gold, earning four bronze then four silvers.
Katie Cosgriffe added a bronze in the pool later on Tuesday, Canada’s sixth swimming medal.
Fournie won the men’s T51 200-metre race for Canada’s third athletics medal in his Paralympic debut.
“It’s not a bad start at all,” the 35-year-old wheelchair racer said. “It’s been a lot of hard work. My coach and I have put in a lot of effort and time. The 200 has always been the most difficult for me so it’s something we’ve worked on the hardest.
“I executed perfectly.”
Cosgriffe is also a debutant at the Paralympic Games. The 18-year-old hailing from Burlington, Ont., obtained her international classification in April 2023 before competing at the para swimming world championships that year.
She finished with a time of one minute 7.22 seconds in the women’s S10 100-metre butterfly event.
“I’ve had this in my mind for a while,” Cosgriffe said. “I knew this was always a possibility, but I didn’t see it actually happening. The fact now it’s real, I’m really happy how it went.
“I’m not overly (happy) with my time but I can’t complain about that because I won a medal.”
It was the sixth medal in the pool for Canada in Paris, with Aurelie Rivard and Nicholas Bennett each having two. Cosgriffe and Tess Routliffe have one apiece.
Canada picked up two wins in mixed pairs BC4 boccia preliminary round action. The Canadians defeated China 8-5 before topping Croatia 6-4.
Canada will next play Ukraine in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
In goalball, Canada fell 5-1 to Israel in the women’s quarterfinals. Amy Burk had Canada’s lone point.
Canada’s men’s wheelchair basketball team, meanwhile, advanced to the semifinals with a 79-67 win over the Netherlands.
Patrick Anderson paced Canada with 20 points, while Nikola Goncin and Tyler Miller added 16 and 10, respectively.
“I just went to talk to my family, and they’re super excited. We’re in a semi(final),” Anderson said. “I came back in 2017 (after a five-year break) just with the hope to make it to the medal rounds with this group, and it’s taken us seven long years to get there.
“The core of this group has been around since 2017, so we’ve been through a lot of lows together. My early part of my career, we kind of hit the ground running and had a lot of success early. At least it felt that way to me as a young player. But this team really had to work for it and suffer some real setbacks along the way.”
The semifinals are set to take place on Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2024.
