Turkey breaks medal record at Tokyo Paralympic Games

TOKYO

Turkish athletes have bagged the 11th medal on the seventh day of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, surpassing the 10 medal-record in the 2016 Rio Games.

Turkish Paralympic shooter Aysegül Pehlivanlar won a silver medal on Aug. 31 in the P2 women’s 10m Air Pistol event. She won with a total of 234.5 points in the final.

The 41-year-old previously won a bronze medal at the Rio Games. Another Turkish athlete competing in the final, 43-year-old Aysel Özgan, came in eighth place.

Sevilay Öztürk took bronze in the women’s backstroke final, winning the nation’s first medal in Paralympic swimming.

Öztürk, 17, completed the 50-meter backstroke S5 final in the third spot with a time of 43.48 seconds to claim the bronze medal in Tokyo.

China’s Dong Lu won gold with a time of 37.18, which is a new world and Paralympic record.

Another Turkish swimmer, Sümeyye Boyacı was among the finalists, but the 18-year-old ranked fourth with a time of 43.94 and failed to make the podium in the final.

Turkey’s Nihat Türkmenoğlu and Bahattin Hekimoğlu clinched a silver and bronze medal in archery.

Türkmenoğlu secured silver after a narrow loss to the Czech Republic’s David Drahoninsky in the gold medal clash of the men’s individual W1 class.

Drahoninsky edged the match by 142-141, equaling the record he set at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.

Hekimoğlu won bronze in the same category, beating Iran’s Mohammadreza Zandi 139-134.

The Tokyo Paralympic Games will end on Sept. 5.