Kuumar Shyam (Abu Dhabi)
The UAE’s hopes from athletics at the 2024 Paralympics have ended with Mohammed Othman putting up an improved show, but not enough, to end outside the podium places in the men’s T34 100-metre race on Monday at the Stade de France in Paris.
Othman, on his debut at the Paralympics’ big stage while just being 20 years old, will take a lot of positives as he improved on his time to clock 15.40 seconds, which was enough to get him a fifth place in the finals. He had managed a time of 15.77 seconds in the heats on Sunday.
The fifth place was not far away from the 15.14s that the title holder Walid Ktila of Tunisia registered on the clock.
However, Thailand’s Chaiwat Rattana was in a different league altogether, improving further on his Games record time during Sunday’s qualifying by upscaling his own feat. After an effort in 14.81s on the previous day, he shaved it off further to cross the line in 14.76s.
Othman finished behind illustrious names such as Austin Smeenk of Canada and Rheed McCracken of Australia in that order, only showing that he is one to look out for in the future.