Paralympics 2020: Ukrainian became the most titled athlete of the games

The Paralympics 5 ended on September 2020. The Ukrainian became the most titled athlete at these games. The edition told in more detail with the BBC.

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Medal credit

And although the Ukrainian received the most medals, Ukraine was in 6th place in the medal standings (24 gold medals and 98 in total).

The first five were:

• China - 96 gold and 207 total
• Great Britain - 41 gold and 124 total
• USA - 37 gold and 104 total
• Russian Paralympic Committee - 36 gold and 118 total
• Netherlands - 25 gold and 59 total

Belarus is in 27th place with 5 gold medals and 7th overall.

Most titled athlete

Ukrainian swimmer Maxim Kripak is the athlete who received the most medals at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.

He has seven medals, five of which are gold and one silver and one bronze.

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But Maxim Kripak has even more Paralympic awards - at the previous competition in Rio in 2016, he also received five gold medals and three more silver.

Therefore, in total, the Ukrainian has 15 Paralympic medals at distances from 50 to 400 meters in freestyle, as well as in relay races.

Maxim Kripak won awards at the World and European Championships in 2018-2021.

All this makes him one of the most titled Paralympians in the world.

But the path to this for Maxim was not easy, at some point he could leave the sport.

From the Olympic Reserve to the Paralympic Movement

Maxim Kripak is 26 years old, he is from Kharkov. He was born with congenital disorders of the musculoskeletal system - problems with his right leg.

But despite this, he began to compete with healthy swimmers at the Olympic reserve school, this was the decision of his parents.

“However, with age, disability made itself felt more and more, and it became more difficult for Maxim to compete on equal terms with healthy opponents. In order not to part with his sports career, Maxim switched to Paralympic swimming,” says the website of the Kharkov City Council.

Received the international C 10th sports class - with minimal defeats, it is believed that such athletes differ very little from Olympians.

For some time, his parents generally hid his disability from the guy.

“Few people knew that he had been disabled since childhood. We didn't tell him the truth. We came up with a story that he was simply clogged and it was necessary to cut off his finger,” Maxim’s mother said in 2016.

In Kharkov, he was engaged in swimming in the structure of “Invasport” - a Ukrainian sports system for people with disabilities.

Due to the transition to the Paralympic movement, there were problems with the Olympic coaches with whom he trained in the past.

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“He was expelled from the sports school and banned from visiting the pool they rented. Then he had to buy a pool subscription with his own money and prepare for the main sports competition of the four-year anniversary,” recalls Kripak’s mother.

In 2015, he won the Ukrainian championship, and in 2016 he received his first serious international awards at his debut Paralympics in Rio.

As a result, Maxim Kripak set several records at two Paralympics and is now considered one of the strongest swimmers in the world at a distance of 400 m freestyle.

“Only after the first medal did I realize that anything is possible, you just have to give it your all. At the World Championships, the first day went badly for me - I was fourth. It both made me laugh and scared me. I was upset, but I realized that I had made a mistake myself. And therefore, at the next start I will need to set up a little differently and correct these mistakes, as a result, the next day everything worked out,” Maxim Kripak recalled his first victories in 2020.

And he told about the transition to the Paralympians as follows: “For a long time I was engaged among healthy people and did not even know that there was a Paralympic movement. Plus, at that time, my parents were, so to speak, not particularly enthusiastic about the fact that I could be engaged in import. They were afraid that I might somehow misunderstand this atmosphere, and so on. "

And he himself says that he managed to overcome this barrier.

“But over time, every athlete has a certain turning point, or hole. And during the period when I had this hole in my plans for results, they suggested to me not to waste time and try myself in Paralympic sports. I tried it and it worked,” summed up Maxim.

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