The athlete Joan Munar has achieved this Friday the Bronze medal in the long jump T11 (totally blind) of the Paralympic Games Paris 2024 after an extraordinary and highly competitive competition in which he needed to improve his own personal best in the last attempt to get on the podium.
Munar, 28, was one of the protagonists of an exciting final held at the Stade de France and flew to his home first personal Paralympic medal after a difficult test that was constantly interrupted by the prevailing noise caused by the different finals, the music and the public, which almost filled the stands.
Long jump events for blind athletes should be held practically silent because the athletes are guided by a caller who directs them towards the beat before they perform the jumps.
The competition started in the rain, which disappeared as the contest progressed. Munar had a regular performance with only a null jump and his first two attempts were below six meters.
The Majorcan athlete started in fifth position (5.91 metres in the first jump) and provisionally moved up to third place after her third attempt (6.16), some way behind the Chinese Dongdong Di and Shichang Chen.
Another Chinese jumper, Tao Ye, beat Munar by one centimetre in the fifth jump (6.17), forcing the Mallorcan to approach or surpass your own personal best (6.20) if he wanted to win his first Paralympic medal.
Finally, Munar flew up to 6.32 meters and was not outdone by Ye, thus claiming his first Paralympic medal after four Games under his belt.
The gold medal went to Dongdong Di (6.85, new world record), silver went to Shichang Chen (6.50), bronze went to Munar (6.32), while Tao Ye had to settle for fourth place (6.29).
“A dream come true”
After finishing the race, Munar said he was “a little in shock, but very pleased and happy.” “My first medal at the Paralympic Games,” he said, before adding: “It’s a dream come true and this bronze seems like the worst medal, but It tastes more like gold to me“.
The Balearic athlete stressed that “the competition was not easy at all” and that he started with good feelings, but he was not able to make a good mark. “Halfway through the competition, things It has become complicated for us. My way of running was no longer good, I was a bit slow and I was losing my feeling. They overtake you by a centimetre, you are losing feeling, you saw the medal very close and it was getting further away by a centimetre, but in the last round I got the bronze and a personal best,” he summed up.
Munar said that the top four in the world rankings are Chinese, but only three of them were able to go to Paris 2024. “I knew that one of the three had to make a little mistake for me to have more chances of winning a medal. I had to make a personal mark and I have taken three centimeters off one of them. The Chinese are there, but we are among them,” he added.
Munar debuted at the 2012 London Gameswhere she competed in sprint events (100 and 200 metres, and 4×100 metres), without reaching any finals. Four years later, in Rio 2016, she finished fourth in the 400 metres. Paris 2024 is her third Paralympic experience.
