This Wednesday, cycling at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games was dyed red and yellow. Four Spaniards have won a medal in time trial cycling, each in a different category. Ricardo Ten has won gold in the event C1 — the category with the greatest physical disability — Sergio Garrote was proclaimed Paralympic champion in H2, Eduardo Santas took silver in C3 and Damián Ramos won bronze in C4.
Ricardo Ten, 49, suffered an electrical accident with a high-voltage cable when he was young and had to have both arms and one leg amputated. This Wednesday he took gold in the C1 category of road cycling time trial with a time of 20m 39.53s. This first place is added to two other medals won at these Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 – a silver as part of the sprint team and another bronze medal in pursuit. The cyclist has thus extended his list of achievements, which already includes four golds, two silvers and five bronzes in the seven Games he has participated in.
The other Spaniard to have won gold in his category was Sergio Garrote, 45 years old. At 22 years old he suffered a work accident that caused him a quadriplegic spinal cord injury that has left him unable to move his legs. This Wednesday in Paris, with a time of 24m 33.71s he took the top step of the podium in the H2 handbike time trial, which he had already won in the previous Games. These two medals join another bronze he won in Tokyo in the H1 handbike category.
Eduardo Santas suffered cerebral palsy at the age of four, caused by chickenpox, which left him with hemiplegia on the right side of his body. He is now 35 years old and this Wednesday he won the silver medal in the C3 time trial. A time of 39m 12.71s has earned the cyclist another medal in his Olympic list of achievements, which until this Wednesday included a bronze in the team sprint in Rio 2016.
Damián Ramos, 38, was the last to complete the medal list in adapted road cycling. The Galician fell off a cliff during a trail running event in 2014 and had to have a prosthesis fitted to his ankle due to the open fracture of his tibia and fibula. Ten years later, he managed to get into the top three in the C4 category time trial in Paris 2024, finishing with a time of 38m 5.94s.
Spain has 30 medals so far, and Ander Cepas has won a medal in table tennis, after beating Ukrainian Ivan Mai 3-0 in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. In addition, Martín de la Puente and Judith Rodríguez have the chance to add to Spain’s medal tally in the coming days. De la Puente has made it to the singles semi-finals in tennis, as well as in doubles with Dani Caverzaschi, and Rodríguez is aiming for the bronze medal in fencing.
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