PARIS – Para-athletes have world class skills despite their physical limitations and Greeks at the Paris Paralympics showed their abilities, winning two gold, three silver and six bronze medals before the Games end on Sept. 8, standing 33d among countries.

Athanasios Ghavelas won the T11 100 meter run, after setting the world and Paralympic record at the Tokyo Games in 2021,with a time of 10.82 seconds. He ran with a guide, Ioannis Nyfantopoulos, and was named the Best Greek Male Athlete with a disability in 2021 and 2023.

The event is for athletes with a visual impairment including being blind, able to perceive light, but have no ability to see the shape of a hand at any distance.

Athanasios Konstantinidis, 54, won the other gold, in the F32 shot put, his second in the event after being the champion at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games in Brazil. He won silver at Tokyo. In Paris, he also won silver in the Men’s Club Throw F32.

Lazaros Stefanidis, who represented Greece at the Tokyo Olympics along with his son Leontios, won bronze in the Shot Put F32 event won by his Konstantinidis.

Lida-Maria Manthopoulou, 29, won silver in the 100 meters T38 event. Her club is Elpides Thessaloniki.

She suffered from Multiple Sclerosis about 1 1/2 years before the Games. Her father was the actor Aias Manthopoulos, who died in 2023 and her brother Christos is a professional basketball player.

The T38 category is for ambulant athletes with cerebral palsy. T38 athletes have the mildest form of impairment caused by cerebral palsy, often in only one limb, and not affecting the ability to run, walk or jump freely, although impairing performance. T38 athletes may suffer minor coordination difficulties.

Antonios Tsapatakis, 36, won silver in the 100 meters breaststroke T34 competition, a sport he has dominated with two national records and more than 20 gold, silver and bronze medals in European and world events.

He became a T8-9 complete paraplegic after a spinal cord injury due to a motorbike accident in 2006 while still a teen. He had said that what drove him back to swimming was his need for independence and becoming active again.

Tsapatakis grew up in Chania, Crete. Αt the age of five, he started swimming in the public swimming pool and by 12 he became a water polo player for the swim club, winning awards in that sport as well.

THE MEDALS COUNT

In 2015, he broke the European record and won the silver medal at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Swimming World Championship in Glasgow and is near dominant in the pool.

Tae Kwan Do brought bronzes for Christina Gkentzou in the Women’s 65 kilogram category and Eleni Papastamatopoulou for the Women’s +65 Kilos, adding to Greece’s take in Paris.

Gkentzou, 19, won Gold at the 2024 European Championships in Belgrade. She competes in Disability Class K44 which applies to “Single below knee amputation or an athlete who can walk with moderately reduced function in one or both legs.”

Papastamatopoulou, 22, is in her fifth year of medical school, comes from Aitoliko and was born and lives in Ioannina.

Grigorios Polychronidis, 43, won bronze in Boccia in the Men’s Individual BC3 category for players with very severe locomotor dysfunction in all four extremities , allowed to use an assistive device such as a ramp to deliver the ball, or an assistant.

From a seated position, players propel balls to land as close as possible to a white marker ball, the Jack. Two sides compete as individuals, pairs or as a team of three over a set number of ends (four for individuals and pairs, and six for teams).

He won the gold medal during the 2012 Summer Paralympics in BC3 mixed pairs along with Maria-Eleni Kordali and Nikolaos Pananos, competed at the 2004 Athens Paralympics, and won Silver at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics.

At the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, he was the flag bearer in Opening ceremony. He won two more medals in Rio, the silver at the Mixed Individual BC3 and the bronze medal at the Mixed Pairs BC3, along with Nikos Pananos and Anna Ntenta.

Polychronidis won two medals at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. He was again second at the Mixed Individual BC3 and third at the Mixed Pairs BC3, along with Anna Ntenta and Anastasia Pyrgioti.

Konstantinos Tzounis won the bronze medal in the men’s discus throw F56 and had won the Gold at the Tokyo Games that were scheduled for 2021 but held a year later because of the COVID-19 pandemic essentially shutting down travel and gatherings.

Manolis Stefanoudakis won bronze in the Men’s Javelin Throw F54 category after winning Gold at the 2016 Rio Games and bronze in London in 2012.

F54 is a disability sport classification for disability athletics for people who compete in field events from a seated position. Different disability groups compete in this class, including people with spinal cord injuries.