British sprinter is in flying form as she clocks another world record to win T38 200m to add to 100m title

Sophie Hahn had not raced 200m all year but she stormed to gold in the T38 event in a world record of 25.92 on Wednesday at the World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai.

It was the Briton’s second title of the week – adding to the 100m gold she won the previous day – and the seventh world title in her career so far.

“That was absolutely incredible,” she said after clipping one hundredth of a second off her own world record. “I have no idea where that world record came from. I didn’t think I could run it for 200m so it’s really surprising. It’s been a perfect couple of days.”

The 22-year-old was helped by a small tailwind of 1.2m/sec and added: “I got out hard I’ve been working a lot on coming off the bend fast. I’m glad the hard work has paid off. To match what I did in London (two years ago) is incredible,” she added on retaining her title.

As in the T38 100m, Hahn was followed home by runner-up Luca Ekler of Hungary and Rhiannon Clarke of Australia (pictured above).

Jason Smythe, the world’s fastest para-athlete, broke his own championship record in the T13 100m with 10.54. It was the visually-impaired Irish sprinter’s seventh world title.

Chinese wheelchair racer Zou Lihong won her fourth gold of the championship in the T54 5000m with 12:12.73 as Prawat Wahoram of Thailand beat a strong field to win the men’s T54 5000m in 10:33.00 as Marcel Hug was a close second and recent New York City Marathon winner Daniel Romanchuk fourth..

Markus Rehm, one of the world’s best known para-athletes courtesy of his 8.48m T64 world long jump record, won his event for Germany with 8.17m as Mpumelelo Mhlongo of South Africa set a T44 world record of 7.07m in third.

Elsewhere, world records were also set by Alessandro Da Silver of Brazil in the men’s F11 discus with 46.10m, Vladimir Sviridov of Russia with 16.32m in the men’s F36 shot put, Karisma Tiarani of Indonesia with 14.72 in the women’s T63 100m and Liu Li of China with 12.05m in the men’s F32 shot put.

Championship records were set by Deja Young of the United States with 24.47 in the women’s T47 200m, Peter Genyn of Belgium with 37.90 in the men’s T51 200m, Ranki Oberoi of the Netherlands with 7.39m in the men’s T20 long jump, Hamed Amiri of Iran with 29.77m in the men’s F54 javelin and Xiaoyan Wen of China with 13.20 in the women’s T37 100m.

Earlier in the day Britain’s visually-impaired sprinter Libby Clegg was disqualified from her T11 200m semi-final but said she was pleased to get back into championship action after giving birth to her first child seven months ago.

Full results can be found here, while further Dubai 2019 news and coverage can be found here.