Paul Blake produced a captain’s performance to successfully defend his IPC Athletic World Championships T36 800m title in thrilling style in Doha on Monday.
The British men’s team captain, coached by Rob Ellchuk at the University of Bath, took the race by the scruff of the neck and opened up a 15m lead after completing the first 400m in 62 seconds.
He dug deep to maintain that advantage coming down the back straight and then had just enough left in the tank to hold off fast-finishing Russian Artem Arefyev, winning in a season’s best time of 2:06.89.
“It has been a long, tough season but all the work I have put in has paid off – to defend my title is brilliant,” said Blake, who won T36 400m silver on Friday.
“My coach and I had a plan before the race. That was to go 62 or 63 for the first lap and then just keep running. I was aware of Artem but I wasn’t too bothered – I stuck to my race plan and it worked out.”
It is the seventh World Championship medal of Blake’s career and his third gold, following on from his 400m success in 2011 and 800m triumph two years ago.
Looking to emulate Blake by getting on the podium in Doha is his training partner, Sophie Kamlish. The 19-year-old is third-fastest in the world in the T44 100m this year and all of her racing takes place on Thursday, with the final at 2.14pm GMT.
A live stream is available throughout the course of the IPC Athletics World Championships at paralympic.org/doha-2015.
More than two hours of live coverage each day is also available to watch on More4.
