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Madison de Rozario leaves her fifth Paralympic Games as a multi-medallist for the third consecutive time after a silver in the marathon (T54) on the Parisian roads on Sunday to combine with her bronze (5000m) on the track in the Stade de France.
The Tokyo defending champion for the gruelling 42.2km event – made even more so in Paris for wheelchair users with 10km of cobblestone streets – crossed in 1hr:46min:13s, or 4min:23s behind Catherine Debrunner (Switzerland). USA’s Susannah Scaroni (1:46:29) took bronze.
De Rozario won three medals at Tokyo 2020 and two in Rio in 2016.
She revealed post-race in Paris that she had lost her father, Roy, on the day of the Opening Ceremony – her family telling her the next morning so as not to disrupt her flag bearing duties.
“When you first get news like that you know the option is there to go home,” she said. “It felt like the correct thing to do – I have two sisters in Australia – but I feel so lucky because the first thing my family said was ‘Don’t come home… we will wait’. That took a lot of pressure off me.
“The reality is if I’m not going to be with my family in Australia, I’m going to be with 160 members of my Paralympic family.”
De Rozario was never outside the top four placings at every five-kilometre time check. She worked solidly with Scaroni and Tokyo silver medallist Manuela Schaer (Switz), who finished 4th.
Debrunner will be now known as ‘Catherine the Great’ after collecting her fifth gold medal in Paris – the 400m, 800m, 1500m, 5000m and marathon. Did we mention she took silver in the 100m?
“It’s been such an unbelievable week for her and she made that clear very early on by opening up that gap,” de Rozario said. “For a little while there Susannah and I thought we could close it but she was too strong. It was definitely her race today.”
Her coach Louise Sauvage, who won both wheelchair road and track gold, said of the Swiss athlete: “She’s a freak too, like Madi. Theya re both amazing, amazing athletes with what they’ve done.”
Sauvage usually likes to drive the course the day before so she can relay her observations to de Rozario.
“We weren’t able to do that in Paris but I watched the video several times and handed on all the information I could,” Sauvage said.
“I told her the big section of cobblestones near the end would be the ‘make it or break it’ stage.
“I’m so stoked she got away there and made a bit of a gap on Susannah. We’ve done a lot of work – it’s been a long campaign and marathon was the one we really focused on.”
The finish line was on the Esplanade des lnvalides, as for the Olympic Games. But the Paralympians traversed the Champs Elysees twice rounding the Arc d’Triomphe, which the Olympic course did not include.
For the Paralympics it all started out in the northern Parisian suburbs and passed the Basilica Cathedral of Saint-Denis, which houses the tombs of French kings, then the Stade de France – where the Para-athletics track and field events took place – before heading into the city.
There’s no rest for de Rozario. She will compete in the Sydney Marathon next weekend four days after arriving home, and then onto the New York Marathon in November.
By: Margie McDonald, Paralympics Australia
Published: 8 September 2024
