Para Track Worlds Are Underway: Here’s What You Missed On The Opening Two Days

The best Para track and field athletes have had to wait almost four full years to compete at a world championships again. That wait finally ended on Sunday, as the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships kicked off in Paris. 

Sprinters Jaydin Blackwell and Noah Malone provided the biggest highlights for Team USA through two days of competition, with the pair each claiming a world title in his respective 100-meter event.

Blackwell, a 19-year-old from Oak Park, Michigan, made a strong first impression on the world stage during the men’s 100-meter T38 heats on Sunday. Blackwell clocked a personal-best time of 10.87 to break the previous meet record (10.93) set by Evan O’Hanlon of France in 2013. 

O’Hanlon was one of the eight athletes in Monday’s final, but no one was catching Blackwell on this day. Though Blackwell couldn’t beat the time he ran on Sunday, his 10.92 was still fast enough to win a world title. Joining Blackwell on the podium was U.S. teammate Nick Mayhugh, who took home the bronze in 11.14. Mayhugh is the reigning Paralympic champion in the 100 T37 but is competing in the T38 class in Paris. Ryan Medrano, who’s also making his worlds debut, made the final and finished sixth. 

Shortly after Blackwell won the first gold of the championships for Team USA, Malone added another when he won the men’s 100-meter T12 with a time of 10.53. That time would’ve been a new competition record had the 21-year-old from Fishers, Indiana, not run a 10.50 in the preliminary heat on Sunday. That broke the previous record of 10.54 set by Norwegian Salum Kashafali in 2019. 

This is the second world championships gold for Malone, who won a world title in the 4x100 universal relay in 2019. The rising senior at Indiana State also has three Paralympic medals to his name.

Here’s what else you missed after two days in the City of Light.

The women’s 1,500-meter T13 final on Monday happened to fall on Liza Corso’s 20th birthday. Her family and friends might have a hard time getting her a better gift than the silver medal she won after posting a time of 4:22.50. That would’ve been a new competition record had the Newmarket, New Hampshire, native not finished 0.35 seconds behind gold medalist Fatima El Idrissi of Morocco.

Either way, it was an impressive debut for Corso, who competes on the track and field team at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. It also pairs nicely with the silver she won in the same event at the Tokyo Paralympics two years ago. 

She wasn’t the only distance medalist on Monday.

Taking home the first medal of the championships for Team USA was Susannah Scaroni. Competing in her fifth world meet, Scaroni won the bronze in a tightly contested women’s 5,000 T54 final. Scaroni’s time of 11:09.14 fell just behind Swiss teammates Catherine Debrunner (11:07.22) and Manuela Schaer (11:07.49). This is the third bronze of Scaroni’s world championships career. 

This continues a strong athletic year for the Tekoa, Washington, native, as she won the New York City and Chicago marathons last fall and continued that momentum into her first win at the Boston Marathon in April. Those wins were enough for the 32-year-old to earn an ESPY nomination in the Best Athlete with a Disability category. 

“It means a lot to me,” Scaroni said after her race. “I like that it recognizes all of the resources that got me here, which has been too many to name. I just want to use the platform to continue to allow people to have resources that can allow them to do things like this.”

Ezra Frech, who at 18 is already competing in his second world championships, set a new Americas record in the men’s long jump T63 with a distance of 6.64 meters. That was good enough for a fourth-place finish, as Leon Schaefer of Germany set a new world record with his jump of 7.25 meters.

He was one of several U.S. jumpers to make a strong showing in Paris.

In the women’s long jump T64, 22-year-old Beatriz Hatz was 0.35 meters short of the podium, as her jump of 5.03 earned her a fourth-place finish. 

Meanwhile, the men’s long jump T11 took place during Sunday’s evening session, and it saw the end of an impressive streak. Lex Gillette finished in seventh place, which means the T11 class had a new world champion for the first time since 2011. While Gillette could not add to his nine career world championships medals, he does still own the meet and world records in the event. 

Sunday’s evening session saw Team USA teammates make world championships history, as Michael Anwar and Sayers Grooms became the first Americans to compete in a frame running event at worlds. In frame running, athletes with limited mobility or balance use a running frame with three wheels to support them as they race down the track. Frame running events were first included in the world championships in 2019.

Anwar, 27, ran a personal-best time of 19.72 in the men’s 100 T72 to claim seventh place. Meanwhile Grooms, 18, clocked in at 22.51 in the women’s 100 T72 and finished in eighth place. 

The world championships continue tomorrow at 9 a.m. local time (3 a.m. Eastern) and run through July 17. You can stream the event live each day on Peacock.