From delivery to gold

The second day of the Paralympics in Tokyo began for the Russian team with the victory of Mikhail Astashov. The whole country found out about him in February 2020, when the media described how a paratriathlete born without arms and legs got a job as a courier in a food delivery service in order to earn money to travel to Japan. Later it turned out that in fact the athlete from Yekaterinburg wanted to test his fortitude and worked only one shift, but he managed to attract attention and become a hero in the eyes of the fans.

His story has received a beautiful continuation.

Astashov was really able to go to the Paralympics, but decided not to compete in the triathlon, but to focus on cycling.

As it turned out, in this sport, great prospects opened up for him.

The first start in Tokyo for a native of Buryatia was a 3,000-meter track race.

Already in qualifying, Astashov made a splash, breaking the world record in his class by almost ten seconds.

Of course, this was enough to qualify for the race for gold.

In the final, Astashov was supposed to show record seconds again, but quite a pleasant circumstance prevented him.

He managed to overtake his rival Tristen Chernov from Canada by lap and won the race ahead of schedule.

Never before have Russian cyclists won Paralympic gold, so the victory of the former courier was a historic event.

True, she was overshadowed by a small incident at the awards ceremony.

In honor of Astashov, the anthem of the International Paralympic Committee sounded, and not the first concert of Tchaikovsky, as it should be according to the regulations.

When the error was discovered, the athletes had to take part in the ceremony again.

Plus seven swimming awards

The swimmers added seven more medals to the total piggy bank of the Russian team, but there was only one gold medal.

It was won by a truly unique athlete Andrei Kalina.

A native of Slavyansk, born without his left arm below the elbow, he played for Ukraine most of his life and, back in 2004, won the 100-meter breaststroke in the SB8 class.

In the next two Paralympics, he continues to be the best in this discipline.

In 2013, Kalina moved to the Russian national team and eight years later waited for another chance to compete. As before, no one competed with him. In the finals of the Tokyo Paralympics, 34-year-old Kalina swam just 0.23 seconds worse than the world record, which he himself set 13 years ago in Beijing.

In the same 100m breaststroke swim, but in the SB9 category, the Russian swimmers won two more awards. Artyom Isaev and Dmitry Bartasinsky touched the finish rim after the Italian Stefano Raimondi, who was a promising young swimmer before his accident. One step away from the podium was another Russian Dmitry Grigoriev - he quickly swam the first half of the distance, but lost to both compatriots in the second and became the fourth. Another silver was won by Andrei Granichka in the 200-meter complex swimming. The athlete from Sevastopol lost only to Colombian Nelson Crispin, who broke the world record in the SM6 category.

Roman Zhdanov won his second medal in Tokyo.

The day before, he had already won gold in the 50m breaststroke swimming, and on Thursday he took third place in a distance twice as long as a freestyle.

It was not possible to compete for a higher award this time - Japanese Takayuki Suzuki and Italian Luigi Bejato did not let anyone close to them.

Bronze was also won by Vladimir Sotnikov, competing with athletes with visual impairments.

The 17-year-old boy finished third in the 100-meter breaststroke, where Belarusian Igor Bokiy once again took the lead - this start brought him the second gold in Tokyo and 13th in his career.

The last medal of the day in the pool was brought by Adelina Razetdinova.

In the same form, but in the competition among persons with violations of the ODA, the 21-year-old girl also took third place.

First successes in fencing

If at the Olympic Games fencing has long been one of the most successful sports for Russia, then at the Paralympics it has not yet brought a single medal.

It was possible to correct this defect only in Tokyo, when personal epee tournaments were held.

The historical first gold was won by Alexander Kuzyukov.

In his youth, he became disabled due to an accident at a construction site and, having lost the ability to walk, took up wheelchair fencing.

In Tokyo, he had to go through a very difficult tournament grid - in the quarterfinals of category B, Kuzyukov defeated the holder of six Paralympic titles Hu Daolyan from China, and then bounced back from 8:13 in a meeting with the reigning champion Andrei Pranevich from Belarus.

In the final match with the Brazilian Jovane Gissone, the Russian from the very beginning created such a gap for himself that he simply could not lose.

In addition to Kuzyukov, two more Russian fencers made it to the finals, but they could not celebrate the final victory.

The 2017 and 2019 world champions Maxim Shaburov and Briton Pierce Gilliver competed in the men's class A tournament.

At first, the Russian was on a par with his opponent, but in the end he lost to him with a difference of three injections.

In women in category B, Victoria Boykova fought for gold with Chinese Tan Shumei, who had already celebrated her victory in the saber tournament the day before.

For the entire final fight, the judge recorded only three injections, and all of them were in the direction of the Russian athlete.

Start with two wins

At the Paralympics in Tokyo, the debut of the Russian women's national goalball team took place - a game for visually impaired people in which you need to throw a ball into the goal with a built-in bell.

In this sport, the Russians are the reigning world champions and the main favorites, which they have already confirmed at the start of the tournament.

The girls started their performance with two victories in the group stage.

On the first day, they confidently beat Canada, and on Thursday they had to compete with the Chinese national team.

At the end of the first half of the match, the Russians were leading with a score of 4: 2 and failed to score again.

But on the other hand, they played well in defense, and the Asian team only narrowed the gap.

Russian girls have already secured a place in the playoffs, which will begin with the quarterfinals.