With excellent conditions for sports, at 22 degrees Celsius and with sunny weather, the paratriathlon belonging to the Rio Paralympic Games started on Copacabana Beach, a modality that debuted in the world's top para-sports event. A total of 10 participants, the best in the world in the modality, faced swimming, cycling and athletics, including the athlete from Lanzarote and native of Punta Mujeres (Haría), Lionel Morales González.
Lionel was calm because his goal was to enjoy the experience and he tried to do so throughout his stay in the Brazilian city, where he was accompanied by his personal trainer, Rubén Toribio, from Mc2Action.
The swimming was dominated by the American Mark Barr, while Lionel Morales lost 2'04 in this first sector, gaining a second when leaving the transition, but now the leader was the Australian Barnt Garvey.
Lionel was comfortable, maintaining the differences and knowing that in cycling he had to give his best to cut the differences with his top rivals. The Avenida Atlántica de Copacabana witnessed the passage of the paratriathletes, seeking to improve their positions in the race.
As the second sector progressed, Lionel Morales' rivals began to exchange positions at the head of the race with a tough fight for the medals. Lionel, meanwhile, continued to observe from eighth position the progress of the race, giving everything to avoid widening the differences.
At the end of the cycling sector, he had not been able to achieve his goal of reducing time, but he was still guarding eighth place, a position that allowed him to have an Olympic diploma and which he had to defend in the last sector, athletics.
The foot race started quite well for the islander, who even managed to climb one position in the first lap, overtaking the Italian Basso, but the distance to the end was getting shorter and the medal options as well. It remained to aim for the Olympic diploma, unthinkable three years ago when he made his first swim across Lanzarote and thus began the Paralympic dream, almost unintentionally.
In the second lap, the Lanzarote native saw how the German Loesler began to get closer and had to give his all to maintain the seventh position with which he entered the finish line, achieving the long-awaited prize of the Olympic diploma. Lionel Morales' final time was 1:16'43". Congratulations, Lionel.
