Wheelchair athlete Anthony Bouchard concluded his Swiss stay in style on Sunday at the Memorial Daniela Jutzeler, a para-athletics competition presented in Nottwil. The Quebecer placed second in the 400 meters and third in the 100 meters in the T52 category.
In the 400 metres, the 31-year-old athlete covered his lap in a time of 1 minute 1.66 seconds. He also smashed his personal best of 1 minute 2.15 seconds set two days earlier at the Nottwil Grand Prix, an event that had been won by Japan’s Sato Tomoki, who won again on Sunday (54.54 seconds).
“I told myself I would race in control, not try to burn myself, because I had a 100m later in the afternoon. One shot off, it was going well and I kept my speed until the end. I think I ran the best race possible with my current form. It’s a great representation of where I’m at in my training. »
In his other race of the day, the 100 meters, Bouchard was third fastest with his time of 17.34 seconds, ahead of his closest rival, Great Britain’s Marcus Perrineau Daley, by 4 hundredths of a second.
Gold went to Swiss Fabian Blum (16.96 s) and silver to Sato Tomoki (16.99 s).
“To be honest, I thought I did a little bit better than that. Probably the fatigue accumulated from the 400 meters in the morning didn’t help me. The execution was good, except that it’s what I had left as energy,” continued Bouchard, encouraged to have had a better reaction time at the start than in his 100m on Saturday. “I’m able to consistently repeat 17.20s – 17.30s. »
Friday and Saturday at the Nottwil Grand Prix, the athlete from Quebec placed third in the 400 meters and second in the 100 meters.
Antony Bouchard began wheelchair racing at the turn of the 2020s. Last year, he took part in two finals at the World Championships and his meteoric progress on the international scene shows no signs of slowing down as dawn begins. of a possible first participation in the Paralympic Games.
“Obviously if I take the time to think about it, it surprises me a little bit, but it all comes together and I don’t really have time to sit and watch it. It can never go too fast,” he says, while we can see a smirk on his face.
The athlete will head to Paris to participate in one last European competition before the Canadian Paralympic Selections which will take place at the Claude-Robillard Sports Complex at the end of the month.