It was a successful final two days at the Para Pan Am Track In Toronto with Josh Cassidy and Jason Dunkerley picking up a combined three silver medals to the silver and gold they had won in the 5000m.
While both picked up silver in Friday night’s 1500m races, Cassidy was also second in the T54 800m, where he certainly got his monies worth of competition. After winning his semi-final race on Wednesday, Josh to the track Thursday in search of his second medal of the games. What he got was a medal – twice.
In the original run of the T54 800m final, Josh avoided a large melee that took out all but three racers, and left him with a bronze medal – or so he thought. Posting on Facebook after the race, Cassidy had this to say, “Big crash in 800m final. One of three to come out of it.. Mexican athlete all over the place whole race. Narrowly avoided him crashing into my multiple times.. So last time I saw it coming. Took out entire field. Re run at 7:55pm.”
The re-run would work in Josh’s favour as he wheeled his way to a time of 1:41.18 and a silver medal behind teammate Alex Dupont.
The duo would finish 1-2 the next day as well, with Cassidy picking up his third silver of the games after completing the 1500m race in 3 minutes 7.98 seconds.
In the T11 1500m final, Jason Dunkerley and guide Joshua Karanja knew they would be in tough against Brazilian Odair Santos. It was Santos who originally finished ahead of Dunkerley and Karanja in the 5000m race before his disqualification after the race. It was a tight battle right to the end, but Santos emerged the victor in 4 minutes 12.16 seconds, less than half a second ahead of silver medalists Dunkerley and Karanja.
After a gold and silver in Toronto, the duo are eager for next year’s Games in Rio where they will again duel with their Brazilian counterparts.
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