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.
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.
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."
"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.
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.
Source: MTI/MOB/Péter Szalmás