Iranian cyclist dies in race accident

RIO DE JANEIRO — An Iranian Paralympic cyclist died Saturday after an accident in the road race on the penultimate day of the Rio Games, officials said. Bahman Golbarnezhad, 48, fell during the event and died of his injuries despite an attempt to take him to the hospital for treatment, officials said. “He unfortunately passed away,” International Paralympic Committee (IPC) spokesman Craig Spence said. Golbarnezhad’s accident occurred during the more than two-hour C4-5 road race for athletes with varying disabilities but still able to bicycle. He was in the first section of a mountainous descent when he fell. “The athlete received treatment at the scene and was in the process of being taken to the athlete hospital when he suffered a cardiac arrest,” the IPC said in a statement. “The ambulance then diverted to the nearby Unimed Rio Hospital in Barra where he passed away soon after arrival.” President Hassan Rouhani in a tweet in Farsi said “the demise of our dear cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad immersed us all in deep sorrow. Rest in peace.” Paralympic officials said Golbarnezhad’s family in Iran had been informed and the Iranian team was also told the news during a meeting at the Athletes’ Village. The cyclist, who wore a prosthesis on his left leg, took up the sport in 2002 and competed at the London 2012 Paralympics. “This is truly heart-breaking news,” IPC president Philip Craven said. “The Paralympic Family is united in grief at this horrendous tragedy, which casts a shadow over what have been great Paralympic Games here in Rio.” The Iranian flag was lowered to half-mast in the Paralympic Village, while the Paralympic flag was to be at half-mast during Sunday’s sitting volleyball gold-medal match between Iran and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A minute of silence will be held during Sunday’s closing ceremony. Eleven days of competition will end Sunday with the last few events, including marathons and wheelchair rugby. Many feared the Games would be a fiasco but it turned into a triumph. The opening ceremony moved viewers with its exuberant set design and the unrestrained joy of the parading athletes. And while the stadiums and arenas were initially empty, the rhythm soon picked up, with noisy and passionate Brazilian fans providing world class atmosphere. By the end, officials said Saturday, they had sold 2.1 million tickets — less than London in 2012 but more than Beijing four years earlier. Part of that success, however, was due to many tickets being sold for as little as three dollars — or given to school children in an international fill the seats campaign. The gap between the Olympic and Paralympic performances is gradually blurring with disabled athletes breaking record after record in Rio. Among the stars were Brazil’s swimmer Daniel Dias who added four golds, three silvers and two bronzes to his existing medal haul from Beijing and London which has won him descriptions as the Michael Phelps of the Paralympics. There was amazement in the 1,500m track race when Algeria’s Abdellatif Baka set a new record that was actually faster than the winning time by Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz in the same stadium a month earlier. However, Centrowitz won in what was by Olympic standards a near record slow race, meaning Baka’s outstanding time was of mostly symbolic significance. China became only the third country to win more than 100 gold medals at a single edition of the Games, celebrating another nine victories Saturday. Seven of those came in athletics with another two each in table tennis and swimming as China ended the day with 105 gold, 81 silver and 51 bronze medals. The United States and Britain are the only other nations to achieve a century of gold medals at a single Paralympics. Both did so at the 1984 Games in New York, when the US claimed 136 victories and Britain 107. The big country missing in the top section of the standings, however, was Russia which during the London Games won 102 medals, including 36 golds. Five of China’s track and field gold medals Saturday were achieved with world record performances. — AFP