Ricardo Ten returns to a Paralympic podium 9 years later by adding a bronze in cycling
The trio made up of Ricardo Ten, Pablo Jaramillo and Alfonso Cabello won this Saturday the second medal for the Spanish cycling team at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, by achieving bronze in the team sprint and thus revalidating that same metal achieved in Rio 2016.
The Spanish team set the third fastest time in qualifying at the Izu Velodrome, with a time of 49.571, behind only China (48.051, new world record) and Great Britain (48.524 ), which led to the fight for bronze against France (50"344), which had the fourth best record in the series of access to the medals.
In the final, Ten, with a large dose of motivation for the event and after falling short of medals in the individual pursuit, was in charge of starting the start for the national team, with Jaramillo in second relay and Cabello culminating the work of his teammates in a last anthological post that lifted Spain to the third step of the podium because the French team was ahead in the first two laps.
The Spanish team completed a time of 49"209, while the French team invested 49"567 in completing the three laps of the velodrome.
First medal as a cyclist in a JJPP
After receiving the medal Ricardo Ten, who got his first medal as a cyclist in a Paralympic Games, recognized that this team metal “tastes twice as much as an individual one. I want to dedicate this medal to my children and to all the people who love me and have been supporting me. It is a bronze that tastes like gold to me”.
The Valencian cyclist living in Tavernes Blanques will also have a new medal option in the road race against the clock, which will take place next week in Fuji.
