Takayuki Suzuki Paralympic gold medal
Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty ImagesTakayuki Suzuki celebrates his gold medal win

Takayuki Suzuki claims Japan’s first Tokyo Paralympic gold and sets a new swimming record

Fresh off his bronze medal in 50m breaststroke yesterday, the Paralympian took the gold today in men’s 100m freestyle

Kaila Imada
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Kaila Imada
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It’s day two of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics and Japan has finally won its first gold medal of the Games. 34-year-old swimmer Takayuki Suzuki picks up Japan’s first gold in the men’s 100m freestyle (S4 category). This brings his medal count up to two thus far, as he also won a bronze medal yesterday in the men’s 50m breaststroke (SB3 category).

For the win, Suzuki finished the 100 metres in just 1 minute and 21.58 seconds. Luigi Beggiato from Italy claimed silver while Roman Zhdanov from the Russian Paralympic Committee took bronze.

Suzuki’s gold medal win also broke the Paralympic record in the category, which was previously held by another Japanese swimmer, Yuji Hanada, from the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. Hanada’s time was marked at 1 minute and 22.77 seconds.

This is Japan’s third swimming medal of the Paralympics thus far, adding to Suzuki’s bronze medal and 14-year-old Miyuki Yamada’s silver medal win yesterday.

Stay on top of the Paralympics by streaming the events online for free. You can also keep tabs with our Tokyo 2020 Paralympic medal tally for Japan.

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