We still don’t have an explanation for why Julia Gaffney was disqualified from her 200m medley the other night. American swimmers Mallory Weggemann and Ahalya Letternberger took gold and silver, respectively, but if Gaffney had matched her time from Heat 1 (about 3:02) in the final, it would easily have gotten her onto the podium. This is really bothering us. If anybody knows what the ruling was there, please share the info? Elsewhere:
SEELY AND DANZ 1-2 IN TRIATHLON AGAIN
As they did in Rio five years ago, Allysa Seely and Hailey Danz took gold and silver, respectively, in the women’s triathlon PTS2 yesterday. There were a lot of lead changes in the race. Britain’s Fran Brown was the first out of the water, trailed closely by American Melissa Stockwell. Danz powered into the lead on the bike, fell behind Brown midway through the ride, then leapt back into the lead at the end of the cycling segment and took command of the race during the run. Or so it seemed. Seely was roughly a minute behind but steadily ate into the gap. She gained sight of Danz with a little over a kilometer to go, passed her inside the 1km mark, and put the race away down the stretch to win by 50 seconds. Stockwell faded during the biking phase and never stood higher than 5th in the race; that’s where she finished, ending her illustrious career just shy of the podium.
STUTZMAN MOVES ON
The Armless Archer edged India’s Shyam Sundar Swami in his first elimination match, 142-139. The remainder of the compound bow competition gets underwway at 8 pm Eastern time. Stutzman’s first match is scheduled for about 8:15pm Eastern. If he survives, the quarterfinals will get going at about 10:30pm that evening, with the semifinals at 11:30 or so and the gold-medal match at approximately 12:30am.
HATZ FLIES TO 5TH
Up-and-comer Beatriz Hatz finished a strong 5th in the women’s long jump (T64). She set a US national record on her second jump at 5.43 meters; not too shabby for her first career Paralympic event. Hatz has two more events, the 100m and 200m sprints, coming up next week.
TONIGHT’S COMPETITION: WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
There’s more triathlon action this evening, with defending gold medalist Grace Norman and Kelly Elmlinger representing the US in the women’s PTS5 race, and Chris Hammer racing for Team USA in the men’s PTS5. Those events go off at 7:30pm Eastern time. Blake Haxton made the finals in rowing for the PR1 single sculls; the starter’s gun sounds at 8:50pm Eastern. Jessica Heims will be chucking the discus in the T64 finals beginning at 9:15pm Eastern
