At a glance: how Team SA fared at the Paralympics on Tuesday

There were two African records in the pool but no medals for Team SA on Tuesday at the 2024 Paralympics.

South Africa remains on two medals heading into Wednesday, after Mpumelelo Mhlongo’s T44 100m gold and Louzanne Coetzee’s T11 1500m silver. There were three sports represented by Team SA on Tuesday — swimming, athletics and boccia.

Christian Sadie reached the final of the S7 100m backstroke and there he finished fifth in 1:13.03 after reacting best at the start. Gold and silver went to the Ukrainian duo of Yurii Shenhur (1:09.51) and Andrii Trusov (1:10.42). Both Kat Swanepoel and Nathan Hendricks swam to new African records.

“Super happy, I’m an IM swimmer and a fly swimmer so it’s not something we’ve been training for,” Sadie said.

“I didn’t know how close I was, but apparently, my coach said it was close so I’m really happy, it was a good day.”

Swanepoel said: “It was just an amazing experience to be in that arena and representing our country. Unfortunately I’m not through to the finals but am super-proud to have finished the race despite dislocating my shoulder in the middle of the race.”

Team SA results on Tuesday:

ATHLETICS

• Women’s 200m, T64 first round: Tezna Abrahams ran a personal best 31.17 in finishing fifth in her heat, but not progressing to the evening final
• Women’s 400m, T37 final: Sheryl James finished fourth in 1:06.88 and Liezel Gouws was fifth in 1:08.33. Gold went to Ukraine’s Nataliia Kobzar (1:00.92) who held off China’s Fenfen Jiang, the race favourite, who took silver in 1:01.88

BOCCIA

• Mixed pairs, BC3 Pool D: Karabo Morapedi and Elanza Jordaan lost to Brazil 7-0
• Mixed pairs, BC3 Pool D: Karabo Morapedi and Elanza Jordaan lost to Greece 10-0

SWIMMING

• Men’s 100m backstroke, S7 heats: Christian Sadie finished third in his heat in 1:14.82 and progressed to the evening final sixth fastest, but only 0.45sec off third place
• Men’s 100m backstroke, S7 final: Christian Sadie went quicker than he had in the morning and his time of 1:13.03 saw him place fifth
• Men’s 200m IM, SM13 heats: Nathan Hendricks finished fourth in his heat in 2:18.36, which qualified him eighth for the evening final
• Men’s 200m IM, SM13 final: Nathan Hendricks finished seventh in an African record 2:17.15
• Women’s 50m backstroke, S5 heats: Kat Swanepoel produced an African record 49.63sec but missed out on a place in the final

Team SA media/Sascoc