Sign In / Register
Just three months out from the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, Milldale para-athlete Mitch Joynt ran a lifetime best in the 200 metre T64 race at the Para Athletics World Championships in Kobe, Japan on May 25, setting a new Oceania record in the process.
The 29-year-old came in fourth, but after the first-placed Italian athlete Francesco Loragno was disqualified for a lane infringement, Joynt was upgraded to the podium, taking the bronze medal.
The Kiwi’s time of 23.15 seconds, a new Oceania record, was just 0.04 seconds behind the gold medal-winning time of Brazil’s Wallison Andrew Fortes (who moved up from silver after Loragno’s disqualification).
It was Joynt’s second successive Para World bronze medal in the 200m T64 event, after taking third place in last year’s championships in Paris.
Joynt has a trademark strong late finish, and the race in Japan was no exception. As the field entered the home straight, he was running virtually last, before unleashing his late charge.
“I’m really happy with the time,” he said. “It is obviously nice to win another global medal but I’m always in competition with myself and I’ve never run a faster race.
“Just like in Paris last year I was pretty much dead last coming off the bend, so I had them exactly where I wanted them,” he said.
“I’ve always been known as a slow starter and that gets highlighted even more on the world stage, but I’m also known as a really strong finisher and that has never been shown more than in this final. Being within 0.04 of gold does sting a bit but it does show how close I am to the top guys.”
The T64 class is for para-athletes who have movement moderately affected in one lower leg, or the absence of one or both legs below the knee.
Joynt lost his right leg below the knee following a woodchipper accident in Mangawhai in 2013. He is the NZ national record-holder for the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m T64, and holds the world record for the 800m T64, a time of 2:17.22, set in Auckland in 2022.
The five-strong New Zealand team finished the nine-day Kobe championships with eight medals – two gold, four silver and two bronze – a performance which Athletics NZ said “offers real optimism going into the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games”.
