Mexican Gloria Zarza won Mexico’s first gold medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games after reaching a distance of 8.06 meters in the shot put final.
Gloria beat Brazil’s Elizabeth Rodrigues and Uzbekistan’s Nurkhon Kurbanova to claim Mexico’s ninth medal at Paris 2024.
Zarza surpassed the silver medal she won in Tokyo 2020 and now Mexico is ranked 31st in the overall medal table with her gold medal.
The Mexican began the competition with a throw of 7.81 meters, but her second attempt of 8.06 was the one that gave her the victory and the gold medal.
At the World Championships in Kobe, Japan, Gloria Zarza also won the gold medal. Elizabeth Rodrigues finished second with a jump of 7.82 metres and Nurkhon Kurbanova of Uzbekistan finished third with a jump of 7.75 metres.
I feel very happy, it was something I had dreamed of. I didn’t hold back. I gave everything until the last moment, the medal has a lot of value and I wanted to show that I could.
Regarding the tough competition, she commented: “I came in fourth place, which pleased me because I didn’t have to wait that long, I warmed up from the start, but it was heart-wrenching, it was the hardest moment of my life to wait, to know that there were other strong competitors coming too, like Brazil and Uzbekistan, so it was heart-wrenching to have to wait, it was more nerve-wracking.”
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