Canada's Lakatos, Dupont win re-runs of 800-metre races at Parapan Am Games

TORONTO -- Brent Lakatos pulled away from the pack to win the 800 metres, pumping one victorious fist in the air -- exactly like he'd done less than 24 hours earlier.

The 35-year-old from Dorval, Que., won the T53 800 for the second time Thursday after a crash and a subsequent disqualification from a night earlier forced a re-run.

Lakatos was the first of two Canadians who would have to repeat their 800 wins on the night, as Alex Dupont of Hemmingford, Que., won gold in a re-run of his T54 event.

Both Lakatos and Dupont argued there should never have been second races. Crashes are a regular occurrence in a sport that, much like cyclists in the Tour de France, features athletes travelling precariously close at high speeds.

"Never, never happens. Just here," Dupont said, of the decision to redo the races. "For some reason, the jury decided to do that. It's not in the rules to do that. Who knows?"

The 29-year-old Dupont, who took up wheelchair racing at 18 -- a year after he lost a leg in a motorcycle accident -- led from the outset, and pulled away from Toronto's Josh Cassidy down the homestretch.

"I was not really happy when I learned that I had to do it again. Not that I didn't believe in myself," Dupont said. "But it's a lot of work obviously. I was tired, and wanting to rest for my race (Friday, the 1,500). I'm also very happy to have had the opportunity to prove that I was No. 1 here today, and not just because of the crash."

Cassidy won the silver, four hours after he finished third in the original race, somehow managing to stay upright despite being in the middle of a massive pile-up that saw five racers go down.

"It happens once or twice every big championship," said Dupont. "Bunch of testosterone in track, everybody is playing it really close, a little bit of bumping and grinding when you're running."

Kyle Whitehouse of St. Catharines, Ont., won the T38 200 metres.

Ilana Dupont, wife of Alex, captured a silver in the T53 100 and bronze in the T53 800. Jessica Frotten of Regina won bronze in the T53 100.

Lakatos, looking sleek in his white racing helmet with a black Maple Leaf and black visor, led from the start. The four-time world champion and three-time Paralympic silver medallist sat just ahead of a pack of three other racers before pulling away over the final 150 metres, fiercely punching at his wheels down the home-stretch.

Wheelchair racers don't push with their palms, but punch the rims with their knuckles. They wear protective gloves that look like boxing gloves. Lakatos credits his 100-metre victory in the rain earlier this week to his experience training in wet weather -- rain makes the rubber slippery.

Lakatos grew up competing in both basketball and wheelchair racing after a freak accident at the age of six left him a paraplegic.

"Fell skating, slid and crashed into the boards, we were playing tag," Lakatos said. "I was OK, I cried, got hugged from my mom, and went back out there, and then the next morning I started weird, like I had growing pains in my legs."

The pain, he said, turned to numbness that crept up his body.

"It was a while before the doctors figured out what was wrong, and it turned out that I had a tiny little blood vessel that was broken inside my spinal column and the blood was pooling and putting pressure on my spinal column."

He calls sports the most important part of his life growing up.

"Because for the first time I was with other people in wheelchairs," he said. "I learned so much from being in a wheelchair from them, I learned I could go up an escalator (the first time was with his basketball team in an airport). I learned you can jump down a curb and you're not going to die. It's little things like that."

Competing at the London Paralympics, and living there with his wife Stefanie Reid -- a Paralympian for Britain -- Lakatos saw first-hand how Brits embraced Paralympic sports around the Games. He hopes the Parapan American Games will have the same effect here.

"That was what I was most excited about for these Games," Lakatos said. "The crowd has been good, but it hasn't been packed like I was hoping."

There was a sparse crowd at the new stadium at York University on Thursday, a couple of weeks after the stadium was filled for the Pan American Games.