"VAN" (Sports Desk, New Delhi - 06.10.2025) :: Zileide Cassiano Da Silva (Brazil) and Fatma Damla Altin (Turkiye) became only the second and third athletes in history to beat Karolina Kucharczyk-Urbanska (Poland) in a global women’s Long Jump T20 competition when they relegated her to bronze medal in the IndianOil New Delhi 2025 World Para Athletics Championships here on Sunday.
Zileide Cassiano Da Silva and Fatma Damla Altin, who had finished behind the Polish athlete in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, found the pace, rhythm and the flight to leap to 5.88m and 5.72m to take gold and silver. The legend Karolina Kucharczyk-Urbanska, who was returning to World Para Athletics Championships after missing 2024, had a best of 5.55m.
It was only the third defeat in a global competition for Karolina Kucharczyk-Urbanska in 10 global competitions since making her debut in 2011. She has won gold in four World Championships and three Paralympic Games. Though she has breached the 6m often, an ankle injury has meant that she had to satisfy herself with a season’s best jump for bronze.
Karolina Kucharczyk-Urbanska said the bronze felt like gold because she is dealing with an injured ankle. She also said she liked how she fought till the end to be on the podium despite competing in unfamiliar heat and humidity. “I had a lot of fun today,” she said. I fought hard to get on the podium,” she said.
Interestingly, Mikela Ristoski (Croatia), the athlete who had beaten the Polish jumper both in World Para Athletics Championships in Christchurch in 2011 and the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 – was engaged with Karolia Kucharczyk-Urbanska in the fight for bronze but was unable to edge her famed rival out of the podium.
From the Shot Put circle, the Netherlands’ Lara Baars sent the iron ball over 9.77m for a new World Record in the women’s F40 class. The only competitor who went over the 9m mark, the 28-year-old rewrite her own World Record twice, thus accounting for the 30th World Record in New Delhi 2025.
Jury of Appeal reverses decision
Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, the Jury of Appeal reversed an earlier decision and reinstated four marks of Brazilian Paulino dos Santos Thiago in the men’s Shot Put F57 final, including a best of 14.82m that gave him the silver medal and relegated India’s Soman Rana to bronze and Finland’s Teijo Koppikka out of the podium.
While India’s count of medals remained at 18, it now has six medals of each colour and is placed seventh on the table. India’s hopes of rising higher rest on sprinter Simran Sharma’s shoulders as she competes in the women’s 200m T12 final where she will up against Clara Barros Da Silva (Brazil) and Venezuela’s Alejandra Paola Perez Lopez.
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