Pritchard delighted to break Paralympic Games record with fighting finish

Ben Pritchard sparked a sensation by breaking the Games record by more than 10 seconds to claim top spot in the first stage of the PR1 men's single sculls.

It was a statement performance from Pritchard as he claimed the top seeding for the final, where he will aim for a first Paralympic medal.

"I'm really happy," said Pritchard. "It's always good to cross the line first but more importantly, the times I'm seeing in training are coming to fruition in racing.

"That's always nice, to not worry about who is around you and trust your body because you know what you've been doing in the winter, and you know what will work."

The Welshman was trailing Italian Giacomo Perini, a two-time world silver medallist, for the first 1500 metres of the 2000m course at Vaires-sur-Marne.

Pritchard unleashed a fearsome finish to overhaul Perini and cross the line first by a margin of 17 seconds in a time of 8 minutes 51.26 seconds.

He was just a second outside of the world record held by Ukrainian Roman Polianskyi but purposefully eased down on the finish line with a new world best time in his grasp.

A fierce thunderstorm rolled onto the course in the latter stages of the race, with lightning causing an hour's delay to racing and offering an atmospheric backdrop to one of the best races of Pritchard's career.

"Sometimes you need to save a bit of energy and savour the moment," said Pritchard, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport's National Lottery-funded World Class Programme.

"That's kind of why I stopped, I knew I had the win, the roar from the crowd was incredible, there was lightning, and it was such a picture.

"Seeing the lightning strike and everything, I was sat there thinking, 'this is cool'. I just wanted to savour that moment because you don't get many of those in racing."

Pritchard put in a similarly punchy performance in the heats on Paralympic debut in Tokyo three years ago, but couldn't back it up in the final, where he finished fifth.

A pair of World Championship bronze medals since then have proven that he is capable of managing the momentum of a major regatta and he will need to do so again in Paris.

Polianskyi, who won the first of two heats, is the man to beat and can become the first rower to win three Paralympic gold medals with victory.

"This has been a three-year project," added Pritchard. "Tokyo was a whirlwind, but we've had three years to work on my race strategy, my warming up, my cooling down.

"More importantly, after the learnings of Tokyo, the Paralympics are like no other regatta in that you race back-to-back, so we've done quite a lot in training to simulate that. I know I'll be able to replicate that.

"We'll hope for the same kind of result in the final and if not, I know I've put myself in the fight to get a medal and fight against the world's best which is all you want to do."

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