“Aunt Irmie” let out a hearty cheering curse, the “Blade Runner” fought back tears several times: the sprinter duo Irmgard Bensusan and Johannes Floors ensured a golden finish at the Para World Championships for track and field athletes in Paris and the German overall balance improved with two highlights a year before the Paralympics.
There were also two disappointments on the final day. Léon Schäfer was denied double gold after his long jump victory with a world record: over 100 meters of the lower leg amputee, the 26-year-old finished third within 17 hundredths of a second after an extremely exciting run with five athletes, despite his personal best time. Schäfer seemed disappointed, but explained that he was “definitely proud to have won the last medal”.
Katrin Müller-Rottgardt was disqualified after second place in the class for the visually impaired because the tape with accompanying runner Noel Fiener was broken before the finish line.
Floors, on the other hand, cemented his status as the dominator in the Blade Runner 400m class. In 45.81 seconds, he surpassed the competition by more than two seconds and stayed just three hundredths above his world record. “I had to suppress the first tear when I saw my family in the spectator stands. The second, when I saw my colleague Irmgard standing on the winner’s podium,” he said. “In the end, these were two pushing moments.”
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Bensusan goes by the name “Aunt Irmie” because she cares a lot about younger athletes. She cheered them on during the World Cup, made suggestions for improvement and even braided her colleagues’ hair before the competitions.
The 32-year-old hadn’t counted on medals, even as the double title defender, because she now works 30 hours a week for an auditor. “What the fuck” was her first reaction when she crossed the finish line, she admitted with a laugh: “I never even dreamed of gold. I was hoping for fourth place to get a slot for the Paralympics.”
Overall, German athletes secured twelve medals on the nine days of competition (5x gold, 2x silver, 5x bronze) and thus one more than four years ago at the World Championships in the United Arab Emirates (7x gold, 2x silver, 2x bronze).
