Brent Lakatos continues strong season with pair of wheelchair racing gold

Wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos of Dorval, Que., continued to be an unstoppable force early in the 2017 season with victories in the T53-54 disability category 200-metre and 800m races on Friday at the Nottwil Grand Prix Para athletics competition in Switzerland.

After world record-breaking performances in Arbon last week, Lakatos came within 0.28 seconds of his 25.04 world record mark in the 200.

He was clearly delighted that his season is progressing so well.

"This year I made changes to hard gloves and it was a really difficult off-season because nothing was working,'' said the 2016 Paralympic Games champion.

"I was trying to use hard gloves and they take a long time to get use to. It's just really in the past few weeks that everything has really come together and I'm feeling really happy now." 

Lei Song of China was second in the race in 24.81 and Yassine Gharbi of Tunisia third in 24.87.

There were 35 entries. Lakatos celebrated his 37th birthday on Thursday and had further reason to smile with a win in the 800 T53 in 1:32.75.

Yong Zhang of China took silver in 1:33.76 and Marcel Hug of Switzerland was third in 1:33.86.

There were 40 entries. Jessica Frotten of Whitehorse was third in the women's T53-54 200-m race.