Swimmer Pap Bianka won a bronze medal in the S10 injury category 400 meter fast track at the Paris Paralympics on Thursday. Csenge Hotz was seventh.

The 24-year-old competitor of Vasas, Pap - whose left tibia did not develop properly due to a skiing accident as a child - this is the third out of five events in the French capital, he has not previously managed to stand on the podium.
Three years ago, in Tokyo, he won a silver medal in the 400 freestyle, but since then he has also won the world championship at this distance, and he reached the finals on Thursday with the third best time from the morning heats.
In the final, he kept pace with the leading American-Canadian duo for a long time, and in the 200, he also came in second, but then fell away from his rivals in the second half of the distance. However, no one threatened his third place, and in the end he crossed the finish line in the bronze medal position with 4:35.63 minutes.

I am very happy with this bronze medal, Pap Bianka told MTI. "After the morning swim, I was worried that I wouldn't be fourth and fall off the podium. Here, the goal was a medal in the four hundred sprint. I thought that I would be able to fight better in the end, but in the first two hundred, I think we really got away from the others, with a pretty strong time. By the way, the morning swim was much better, based on that I thought there would be more in this final, but I swam myself."

The competitor revealed: he has been working a lot with his psychologist in recent days, he started from a low point, but he feels that he is getting higher and higher.

"I'm a little relieved that I won't be going home without a medal. Tomorrow is my main event, the hundred backstroke, in which I am the defending champion, but I will certainly not have an easy time like it was in Tokyo, the competition will be much tighter. With that said, I'm waiting. So now I'm going for it with a little more momentum," he said.

Paralympic newcomer Hotz Csenge from Pécs took seventh place with a time of 4:53.31. He was also seventh in the 100 butterfly before. The only 16-year-old competitor of the Pécs Vörös Meteor Sportkör, at the age of six, the joints of his left leg kept shortening, which is why he became a para-athlete.

I am satisfied with my ranking, less so with my time. I would have liked to swim much better than this - Csenge Hotz pointed out that he was well short of his personal best of 4:48. The young swimmer has one more goal in the French capital, on Saturday he will jump into the pool of La Défense Aréna in the 200 meter medley.

Canadian Aurelie Rivard won the 400 IM. Pap Bianka won the sixth medal of the Hungarian delegation in Paris, the third bronze.
MTI
Cover photo: In the photo published by the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB), bronze medalist Bianka Papp at the finish line in the final of the women's 400-meter freestyle S10 category of the 2024 Paris Summer Paralympic Games at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre on September 5, 2024.
Source: MTI/MOB/Péter Szalmás