Sunday, November 19th, 2023.- Brazil continues its strong dominance in Para swimming at Santiago 2023: it concluded the Sunday morning session with two new gold medals, both setting Parapan American records. With these achievements, the South American delegation now totals 12 gold medals in the pool at the Estadio Nacional.

In the male's 100m butterfly S11, Wendel Bellarmino claimed victory with a time of 1:06.96, surpassing his own Parapan American record of 1:08.22 set at Lima 2019.

Colombian Leider Lemus took the silver with 1:10.58, and Brazilian José Perdigao secured the bronze with 1:11.35.

The male's 100m butterfly S12 repeated the same podium, with gold and bronze for Brazil and silver for Colombia.

The winner was Douglas Rocha, with a time of 59.98, a new continental record (the previous one was 1:01.20 from Lima 2019). Second was Colombian Daniel Giraldo, with 1:02.36, and third was Brazilian Thomaz Rocha, who held the previous Parapan American record with 1:04.69.

It is worth noting that in the S11 category, swimmers have almost total visual impairment, so they all compete with dark goggles. Meanwhile, the S12 category includes athletes with restricted field of vision due to some visual impairment.

Written by María Fernanda Pavez - Alejandro Pérez ; translated by Rocio Rojas / Santiago 2023 vía Photosport
Photo by Marcelo Hernández / Santiago 2023 vía Photosport