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Day five of the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships belonged to Rheed McCracken who blasted his second silver medal of the championships, pushing the world’s best wheelchair racers to the final metres of the 100m showdown.
Fresh from winning the 400m T34 silver medal the previous day, McCracken returned to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi seeking to go better in the 100m T34 event, in which he would meet some of the world’s fiercest wheelchair racers including Tunisia’s Walid Ktila and Thailand’s Chaiwat Rattana.
World record holder Ktila was disqualified for a false start, leaving McCracken to go push for push with Rattana. The Australian lead his rival deep into the race.
“I executed the race I wanted to and it was just too fast in the back end for me. I didn’t have the pace in the last little bit,” McCracken said.
“I felt like I got away really well, better than maybe next to me, but I didn’t have the top end speed and that’s racing. We all turn up here to try and win and only one person can.”
Holding on for silver in 15.04 (-0.8) as Rattana took gold in 15.00 seconds, McCracken remained happy to return to the 100m podium for the first time since the Tokyo Paralympic Games.
“I’m definitely happy,” he said. “I was fourth in the 100m last year and maybe that’s a little bit of athletics karma. I got bronze in the 800m by a small margin that time [in Paris] and this time, it fell the other side.”
Jaryd Clifford played cat and mouse with the field in the 5000m T13 final before a final kilometre proved too hot for the vision-impaired distance runner, who faded in the final laps to finish fifth in 15:26.57.
“I want to assure everyone that I’m sure there is going to be a turning point in my career where I don’t finish every single race and be a little bit disappointed,” Clifford said. “What we’re doing is a long term game and a long term strategy, and I have faith it’s going to work.”
While no Australians progressed from the 200m T38 heats, Briseis Brittain (NT, T38), from Ramingining in Arnhem Land, was the feel-good story of the day, making her international debut and taking her first strides towards emulating her hero Cathy Freeman.
“I am the first (woman) from Ramingining to be competing at this level and it’s cool. I like Cathy Freeman, she was really amazing and talented,” Brittain said.
“I want to be like her and here I am, I am here right now and I hope Cathy Freeman will see this. I’m so excited to do the 400m just like Cathy, that’s on this Saturday.”
Earlier in the day, Akeesha Snowden raced to her second fourth-place finish of the championships, stopping the clock in 13.89 (0.0) in the 100m T37 to lead home teammate Niamh Mac Alasdair in 14.98 seconds for eighth.
19-year-old Ullrich Muller (T38) continued his rapid rise with another personal best, this time in the 400m event where he clocked 50.96 seconds for sixth place in the final, capping off his New Delhi campaign.
Former world champion Corey Anderson battled through an interrupted preparation to finish sixth in the javelin throw F38 with 45.39m, while Daniel Milone claimed seventh place in the 800m T20 with a time of 2:01.51.
Leading the first-round action, Sam Carter punched his ticket to tomorrow’s 1500m T54 final with automatic qualification in a tactical race.
The 2025 World Para Athletics Championships are being held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, India from September 27 – October 5.
Australian viewers can tune in live and free via the Paralympic Games YouTube channel from 1:30pm AEST.
By: Australian Athletics
Published: 2 October 2025
