Best in the world. That’s how Bianca Borgella kicked off her season yesterday. The University of Ottawa student blasted out of the blocks Saturday at the LSU Alumni Gold meet in Baton Rouge to record a pair of new personal bests in both the 100 and 200 metres within the span of a couple of hours.
In Louisiana as part of an Athletics Canada training camp, Borgella recorded times of 12.31 and 25.31 seconds respectively over the 100 and 200 metre events. While placing in the bottom half of the hotly contested Southeastern Conference fields, the 20-year-old’s performances now rank her among the best on the planet in the World Para Athletics T13 category.
Borgella has Leber congenital amuarosis, a term covering a group of inherited diseases that affect the retina during early childhood, causing severe vision loss or blindness.
Since receiving her T13 classification in early 2021, Borgella has emerged as a dominant force in Canadian Para running, having re-written the national record book multiple times in every event from 100 through 400 metres. Saturday’s performances were both national record times, and also have Bianca ranked second globally in the T13 100 metres and in top spot on the planet in the T13 200 metres.
While she leads the world at 200 metres, don’t expect to see her next summer at the Paralympic Games running the half lap event. The women’s T13 200 metres did not make the cut for next year’s Games, but don’t fret as we expect Bianca to be donning the red and white in both the 100 and 400 metre events.
Before next year’s adventure, she’ll get a trial run at this summer’s World Para Athletics Championship – also to be held in Paris.