Brent Lakatos captures world gold in Paris for 3rd Para athletics medal in 5 days
5-time Paralympian beats Thailand's Paeyo by 8-100ths of a second in 800m race
Canada's Brent Lakatos earned his 12th career gold medal at the Para athletics world championships on Saturday, crossing the finish line in the men's T53 800-metre final in an event record one minute 34.31 seconds on a sunny evening at Charléty Stadium in Paris.
It was a wire-to-wire victory for the 43-year-old from Dorval, Que., who captured silver in the men's T54 1,500 on Friday after placing second in Tuesday's T53 400.
Pongsakorn Paeyo closed the gap on Lakatos as they entered the final 100 metres but the latter held off his Thai opponent for his 18th world medal (four silver, two bronze).
It is Canada's first victory at the event and 10th medal (five silver and four bronze) for its best showing since 2015 (11 podium finishes).
Paeyo clocked 1:34.39 after winning 400 gold Tuesday in world record time (1:46.11).
"I always knew it was going to be between the two of us, we are the strongest in this category," said Lakatos of Paeyo. "I thought I had more speed endurance so I wanted to make it a hard, fast, honest 800 metres to test that. I did that and I held him off the last 100 and I'm really pleased that it worked."
WATCH | Lakatos edges Paeyo at finish line for 12th world title:
Paeyo defeated Lakatos across 800 metres in the 2020 Paralympic final, clocking a Games record 1:36.07 in a driving rain in Tokyo after the Canadian couldn't maintain his first-lap lead and reached the finish in 1:36.62.
American Brian Siemann picked up bronze on Saturday in a 1.36.65 season best.
Lakatos, who has amassed 10 medals at five Paralympics, is competing at his seventh worlds.
In other finals, Sarah Mickey of Red Deer, Alta., finished eighth in the women's F57 shot put and Toronto's Jesse Zesseu was 10th in men's T37 long jump.
Quebec City's Anthony Bouchard placed fifth in his T52 400 heat to advance to the final, while Nandini Sharma of Brampton, Ont., stopped the clock in 59 seconds flat for a season best in the women's T54 400.
WATCH | Highlights from Day 7:
Watch live coverage of the World Para Athletics Championships on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Coverage from Paris continues Sunday at 3 a.m. ET with the Day 8 morning session.
