World Para Athletics Championships: Ekler, Blackwell, Yarovyi script World Record to light up humid evening

New Delhi [India], October 1 (ANI): Luka Ekler gave herself an early birthday present by winning the women's Long Jump T38 gold medal with a World Record in the New Delhi 2025 World Para Athletics Championships at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on a humid Wednesday. The Hungarian, who will celebrate her 27th birthday later this month, leapt 5.91m.

Jaydin Blackwell (USA, men's 400m T38) and Oleksandr Yarovyi (Neutral Para Athlete, men's Shot Put F20) were the other athletes who raised the number of World Records set in five days of competition in New Delhi 2025 to 18.

Ekler, a two-time Paralympic Games Long Jump champion who had pegged the World Record at 5.82m three years ago in Paris and the Championships mark of 5.31m in Doha in 2019, was up against Angie Nicoll Mejia Morales and Karen Tatiana Palomque Moreno, who had scored a 1-2 for Colombia in the 100m on Monday. But she lost no time in establishing her superiority.

She rewrote her own World Record twice in the span of the competition, leaping 5.86m on her second jump and improving to 5.91m on the fifth attempt. Interestingly, each of her three valid jumps was enough to fetch her the sixth World Championships gold medal, including three in the Long Jump.

Jaydin Blackwell, 21, scripted a World Record time of 48.00 seconds in the men's 400m T38 final. Having won the 100m T38 with a Championships Record on Sunday, he brooked no challenge in cruising home to a handsome victory that saw him repeat his two-gold feat from Kobe 2024 World Championships and Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Oleksandr Yarovyi led a Ukraine 1-2 finish along with Maksym Koval in the men's Shot Put F20 final, the former nailing a World Record of 17.73m on his third attempt. The competition was of a high quality, with Malaysia's Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli also offering the Ukraine dip some competition with two throws over 17m.

Another athlete gunning for a repeat, Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani (Iran) stumbled short of the finish line and lost the women's 400m T12 gold medal by a mere hundredths of a second. Having led all the way from the start, she was heartbroken when she realised she had to rest content with silver behind Anna Kulinich-Sorokina (Neutral Para Athlete).

China had the chance to leapfrog over Brazil on the medal table, but it needed Liu Yiming to beat Brazil's Jerusa Geber in the women's 100m T11 final. Liy Yiming responded to the challenge with a personal best time of 12.11 seconds. However, Jerusa Geber created a new Championship Record with an 11.81-second effort to win gold, placing Brazil clearly ahead.

Brazil ended the day at the top of the table with eight gold, 15 silver and seven bronze, while China remained in second place with seven gold, nine silver and five bronze. India remained in fourth with four gold, four silver and one bronze behind Poland's 6-1-5 haul. (ANI)