Ukrainian Viktor Didukh won a gold medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in table tennis in the MS8 class.
This is a class where tennis players play standing up, have impaired mobility in both arms or legs, moderate mobility in one leg, or have no limbs.
In the final, Didukh beat Chinese Shuai Zhao – 11:7, 4:11, 11:8, 9:11, 11:8.
This is already Ukraine’s 18th gold medal at the Paralympics in Paris and 70th overall.
The 2024 Paralympics are the third in Didukh’s career. Before that, the tennis player won team gold in Rio 2016, as well as silver medals in the singles and men’s doubles tournaments in Tokyo. In Paris, he already won bronze in mixed table tennis together with Irina Shinkareva in the XD17 class.
Viktor advanced to the final after defeating Frenchman Tom Bouvet, Swede Emil Anderson, and in the semi-final the Ukrainian beat Thailand’s Pisit Wangphonphanasiri.
In the final match for the medal, Didukh’s opponent was the Chinese Zhao, who had knocked out another Ukrainian, Maksym Nikolenko, in the semi-finals. The table tennis players exchanged victories in sets, and in the third set, the Ukrainian took the lead. With the score 9:8 in Viktor’s favor, Shuai managed to take three points in a row and transfer the game to the fifth set, but Didukh won there with a score of 11:9, thanks to which he became the champion of the 2024 Paralympic Games.
In addition, on September 7, the penultimate day of the Paralympics, track and field athlete Igor Tsvetov became a two-time champion at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, winning a gold medal in the 200-meter race (he won his previous gold in the 100-meter race).
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.