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SWIMMING

Sweden’s Alshammar swims home new gold

Sweden's superstar swimmer Therese Alshammar finally snagged her gold after winning the women's 50m freestyle title at the world championships on Sunday.

Published: 31 July 2011 15:38 CEST
Sweden's Alshammar swims home new gold

The 33-year-old Alshammar clocked 24.14sec, setting a new personal record and landing just outside world record time. She nudged ahead of Dutch swimmers Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Marleen Veldhuis to claim her victory.

Other performances at the world championship meet did not disappoint.

Chinese teenager Sun Yang toppled swimming’s oldest world record Sunday when he shattered Grant Hackett’s 10-year mark in the men’s 1500m, ensuring a rousing finish to the Shanghai-based competitions.

Sun, roared on by a capacity crowd, put on a devastating burst over the last 100 metres as he made up a deficit of more than two seconds to touch in 14min 34.14sec, 0.42sec inside Hackett’s mark set at the 2001 world championships.

America’s Ryan Lochte claimed a superb fifth gold medal, and stuttering Olympic great Michael Phelps enjoyed a successful final night when he helped the United States defend their 4x100m medley title.

British backstroker Liam Tancock secured a second pool gold for next year’s Olympic hosts and American Jessica Hardy, who was serving a drugs ban at the last world championships, won the 50m breaststroke.

But it was the 19-year-old Sun who made the eighth and final evening his own with his historic 1500m triumph, to add to his 800m title and 400m silver won earlier in Shanghai.

“I was not obsessed with the world record before the final, because I wanted to focus on my plan — my goal was to win the gold,” Sun said.

“I’m so grateful to the whole Chinese team, including my coach and my parents as well, and I think the world record belongs to all of them.”

The Zhenjiang native led from start to finish to break the only men’s mark to survive the infamous super-suits era, when muscle-compressing swimwear helped set more than 200 global bests in just two years.

Lochte, the only other record-setter in Shanghai, underlined his current supremacy with his fifth gold medal in the 400m individual medley, matching Phelps’ haul from 2009.

But the 26-year-old insisted he was “not really happy” with his achievement, saying he could still make big improvements before next year’s London Olympics.

“For the most part I’m not really happy. I mean getting five gold medals is definitely great but there were times that I went, I know I can go a lot faster,” he said.

“There’s a lot of places in my races that I messed up on, where I could have changed and would have gone faster but I guess I have a whole another year to make sure I have those perfect swims.

Lochte’s team-mate Hardy showed she is back in business when she won the 50m breaststroke ahead of defending champion Yuliya Efimova of Russia.

Hardy, who missed the 2008 Olympics after a positive test and was serving a one-year ban during the 2009 world championships, timed 30.19sec – outside her world record of 29.80 — with team-mate Rebecca Soni third.

“I am really excited, I’ve trained so hard for that,” Hardy said. “I am really, really glad that I did it. I performed very well. All of us did a good job.”

British world record-holder Tancock defended his 50m backstroke title.

And while Sweden’s Therese Alshammar won the women’s 50m freestyle, American

Elizabeth Beisel, 19, won the 400m individual medley.

And 14-time Olympic champion Phelps was instrumental in the United States’ 4x100m medley win, as he took them from fourth to second in the butterfly leg before Nathan Adrian finished off the win.

Lochte has long played second fiddle to Phelps but he has called the tune in Shanghai, beating his contemporary in the 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley, which he won in world record time.

The 26-year-old also won the 200m backstroke and gave the United States a record fourth straight 4x200m medley world title with a super-fast final leg, after a slow lead-off from Phelps.

Sun leads a youthful Chinese team which secured second place on the medals table with five golds behind the United States on 16, giving them high hopes for next year’s London Olympics.

FINA’s doping control review board chairman Andrew Pipe said there were no positive dope tests during the meet, which was hit by controversy when Brazil’s Cesar Cielo escaped a ban for testing positive for a banned diuretic.

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SPORT

The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation

The Paralympics is full of stories of disabled athletes overcoming the odds to achieve sporting greatness but few bear the trauma of Jean-Baptiste Alaize.

Published: 28 August 2020 10:06 CEST
The French Paralympic star who survived war, grief and mutilation
Jean-Baptiste Alaize training in Antibes. All photos: AFP

The 29-year-old French sprinter and long-jumper, who features in Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix released on Wednesday, was just three years old when he lost his right leg.

Not by accident or illness but by the brutal hack of a machete.

A child caught up in the civil war in Burundi in October 1994, he watched as his mother was beheaded.

“For years, every time I closed my eyes, I had flashes. I saw my mother being executed in front of me,” he tells AFP after a training session in Antibes, running his finger across his throat.

The killers left the Tutsi boy for dead. Alaize carries a large scar on his back but he was also slashed across the neck, right arm and right leg by his Hutu neighbours.

He woke up in hospital several days later, alive but missing the lower part of his right leg which had had to be amputated.

“With my mother, we ran, we ran, but we didn't manage to run far,” he says. “We were executed 40 metres from the house.”

A decade later, after coming to France in 1998 and being adopted by a French family, he joined the athletics club in Drôme.

Fitted with a prosthetic limb, he discovered that running gave him his first night without a nightmare since the attack.

“From my first steps on the track, I had the impression that I had to run as long as possible, so as not to be caught,” says Alaize who now lives in Miami.

“I remember like it was yesterday my first night after this session, it was… wow! I had cleared my mind. I was free.

“My energy, my hatred, were focussed on the track. I understood that sport could be my therapy.”

He tried horseback riding and enjoyed it, reaching level six, out of seven, until he pulled the plug.

“It was my horse that let off steam and not me,” he laughs.

The psychologist did not work out either.

“She made me make circles and squares. After a few sessions I told her that I wanted to change my method.”

However he did click with his school physical education teacher, who directed him to athletics after he had anchored his team to a spectacular “comeback” win in a 4×100 metre relay.

His classmates had no idea he was an amputee. He had hidden it to avoid teasing and more racial abuse.

“I was called 'bamboula', dirty negro, the monkey. It was hard.”

Fortunately, the Alaize family, who adopted him after he had spent five years in a Bujumbura orphanage where his father had abandoned him, gave Jean-Baptiste a base and a home that he had not had for years.

“When I arrived here I didn't know it was possible,” he said.

“I had lost that side, to be loved. I still can't understand how racism can set in, when I see my parents who are white, and I am a black child… they loved me like a child.”

His parents, Robert and Daniele, had already adopted a Hutu child from Rwanda, renamed Julien.

John-Baptist was originally called Mugisha. It means “the lucky child” which is not quite how things worked out. His new family name, though, suits him better. Alaize is a pun in French for 'a l'aise' – at ease.

The French disabled sports federation spotted the prodigy, and he began collecting his first trophies, including four junior world titles at long jump, three of them with world records.

“It was starting to change my life and I was happy to represent France,” he says.

He went to the Paralympic Games in London (2012) and Rio (2016), where he finished fifth in the long jump, just five centimetres short of the bronze medal.

Now armed with his state-of-the-art prosthesis, which he nicknamed Bugatti, he was dreaming of taking a step up at Tokyo 2020 and going home to France with a medal but the postponement of the Games has decimated his sponsorships.

“I'm still looking to compete at Tokyo 2021 or 2022 and Paris 2024,” he says.

“If I don't succeed, I will have to turn the page which would be sad.”

He hopes that Rising Phoenix will raise his profile and maybe attract some sponsors.

The documentary's producer Ian Bonhote is in no doubt that Alaize's star is rising.

“He bursts through the screen. His story will resonate,” he says.

“The nine athletes in our documentary all have different backgrounds, but none survived what Jean-Baptiste suffered. His disability was imposed on him in such a savage and violent way.”

Rising Pheonix is available now to view on Netflix.

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