Cody Fournie of Victoria became the men’s T-51 wheelchair sprint king of the 2024 Paris Paralympics by winning the 100 metres Friday in a Paralympic and Canadian record 19.63 seconds at a deafening Stade de France to add to his gold medal in the 200 metres on Tuesday.
“I feel wonderful. It feels great to get two gold medals at the Paralympics,” said Fournie, a first-time Paralympian at 35.
“I did very well with the execution. My strategy was the same as it was in the 200 metres — short quick bursts and increasing the frequency until I get to my full stride.
“I am going to bring back everything I learned from this event and apply it to my training back home at the West Hub [national training centre] in Victoria. I definitely have room for improvement.”
It was the fourth gold medal won by an Island athlete in the Paris Paralympics, including the two by swimmer Nicholas Bennett of Parksville, and the sixth overall. Bennett also has a silver and wheelchair racer Austin Smeenk of Victoria a bronze.
Cyclist Mel Pemble of Victoria had a fourth-place finish in the veldodrome. A big Island medal hope, ambulatory 1,500-metre runner Nate Riech of Victoria, will race to defend his gold medal from the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics today at 10:09 a.m. PT at the Stade de France.
“My plans are for the next gold medal,” said Fournie.
His first on Tuesday received a shoutout on X from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “This was Cody Fournie’s first-ever Paralympic race and he took home the gold for ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. Congratulatons Cody!”
Fournie became quadriplegic when his neck was broken after he was hit by a truck in Kamloops when he was 11. He described earlier in the week what he has to overcome just to roll down the track: “Without having any stomach muscles, I had to learn how to use my head to change the direction of the chair. That took quite a while to figure out. But all that hard work has paid off.”
It was conducted training under coach Geoff Harris of Victoria at the Western Hub national middle-distance centre on the PISE track at the Camosun College Interurban campus. Harris also coaches Paris Paralympics T-34 100-metres wheelchair bronze medallist Smeenk, who contests the 800 metres today and also the universal relay. Riech also trains at the Victoria Western Hub.
Fournie began sports in wheelchair rugby, making the national team, before switching to wheelchair racing: “The transition from rugby to racing helped because I was putting so much time and effort into training, so coming over to racing wasn’t that difficult because I was so used to training already.”
He sent a shoutout to his biggest supporter after his first gold medal: “My wife, Abigail Fournie. She’s a beautiful woman, and she’s given me tons of support, and I love her very much.”
Also on Friday, Sebastian Massabie of Surrey won swimming gold in the S-4 men’s 50-metre freestyle and Jesse Zesseu of Toronto captured F-37 men’s discus silver. ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, despite Pender Island veteran Kady Dandeneau’s triple-double, lost 72-61 to defending Tokyo 2020 champion Netherlands in the women’s wheelchair basketball semifinal and will play for bronze against China on the final day of the Games on Sunday.
ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ has 27 medals — nine gold, seven silver and 11 bronze for 12th place in the table.
