Paralympics 2024: Paralympian disqualified for helping her guide…see more

A runner who competed in Sunday’s Paralympics has been denied her bronze medal in the T12 event, a competition held for athletes with vision loss.

Elena Congost, 36, was “devastated” when she was disqualified from the race because she took her hand off the rope, just for a split second, to help her guide Mia Carol when he cramped up just a metre before the finish line.

Officials said the Spanish athlete had broken the rules, awarding the bronze to Japan’s Misato Michishita.

Congost, who was born with a degenerative hereditary eye disease, said: “I’m devastated, to be honest, because I had the medal.

“I’m super proud of everything I’ve done and in the end they disqualified me 10 metres from the finish line because I let the rope go for a second.

“It was a reflex act of any human, to hold on to a person who is falling next to you. But they say that I have let go of the rope for a second and since I have let it go, that’s it, there is no turning back. I don’t understand that.

“It’s not for cheating, it’s not for dragging down an athlete. I am left with nothing. I can’t find any explanation for it and it seems so unfair and so surreal, really.”