Australia’s Evan O’Hanlon wins silver in T38 100m at Rio Paralympics

THE fastest Australian Paralympian of all time, Evan O’Hanlon, has come second in the T38 100m final in Rio, missing out on a hat-trick of gold medals in the event.

Evan O'Hanlon had to settle for silver.

IT involved Evan O’Hanlon so, of course, it involved theatre.

A sense of something big, something intense, something out of the ordinary. For this is what the Canberra boy is.

It’s just that no-one expected it to go down like this.

Because, when it comes to the T38 100m, O’Hanlon is untouchable, right?

Hell, when it comes to the Paralympics, O’Hanlon is untouchable.

The record says it all.

Evan O'Hanlon couldn’t catch China’s Jianwen Hu.

Fastest cerebral-palsy sprinter in the world. First in his class to break the 11-second barrier in the 100m.

In two previous Games, Beijing and London, never beaten – both 100m and 200m.

Every heat, first. Every final, gold. Every gold, in world-record time.

And now, silver?

“I’m probably a little bit in shock,” O’Hanlon said.

“This is the first time I’ve been beaten on the international stage since probably 2006. I can’t take anything away from him (gold medallist, China’s Jianwen Hu).

“He ran a world record to beat me. I just got beaten by a faster guy on the day. I can’t complain.”

O’Hanlon’s reign as the world force in the T38 100m is over. So too, for now, his international athletics career.

Immediately following his defeat the 28-year-old announced he would “step away” from the track, declaring plans to finally take the South American honeymoon he and wife Zuzana have put off since their marriage December to prioritise this Paralympics campaign.

He will not contest the 400m he was scheduled to run, revealing a chequered lead-in with injury had flared through a calf complaint.

O’Hanlon said the mental and physical break decide whether his spikes would stay permanently racked.

A stunned Evan O'Hanlon walks from the track after his second placing.

“I think I’m going to have to step away from the track at this point,” he said.

“I’d love to keep running but realistically I’d like to give my family the best start.

“I think I’ll go back, have my honeymoon and I’ll know by the end of that.”

If the finish of the race was unexpected then the beginning was just as weird.

First, O’Hanlon’s tape measure to set his starting blocks in lane seven broke. Then, by milliseconds, the runner immediately next to him.

Colombian Wiener Javier Diaz Mosquera, the only runner not using a block, flickered in his crouch just before the gun, triggering a false start.

The jump meant Mosquera was disqualified, but there was confusion when officials flashed the red-and-black DQ card at the runner in lane nine.

Mosquera was eventually marched, protesting his innocence and calling for a replay on the way out, leaving the lane outside O’Hanlon’s empty.

But it was two lanes inside where the big concern was. At the restart China’s Hu blasted to a flyer, storming to a 1m lead over O’Hanlon inside the opening 20m.

He extended the gap and finished powerfully, doubling O’Hanlon’s disappointment by stealing the Aussie’s world record by 0.05s.

O’Hanlon finished with a time of 10.98s, 0.24s behind Hu’s 10.74s.

Evan O'Hanlon with bronze medalist Edson Pinheiro gold medalist Jianwen Hu.

“It just wasn’t my Games,” O’Hanlon said.

“I had a couple of issues going into the heat. I had an issue with my calf where it cramped really badly and that resulted in my jogging through the heats.

“Then coming out onto the start line now, my tape measure broke so it meant I couldn’t measure out my blocks. I just had to guesstimate.

“I would like to think that I’m mentally strong enough to get past everything, but just the fact that it wasn’t my Games was sitting in the back of my head then.”

Originally published as Australia’s Evan O’Hanlon wins silver in T38 100m at Rio Paralympics