Justice is done, Simone won gold in the 100m S9 style. After the alleged disqualification due to a false start of Simone Barlaam (GS FF.OO/Polha Varese) in the final of the 100 freestyle S9, Italy proceeded to present the appeal. According to the judges, Simone would have moved before the starter’s signal. The first appeal was not accepted therefore the Italian team appealed and thanks to the images produced by our video analyst Matteo Poli it was possible to shed light on the alleged disqualification and in the end Italy’s correct version prevailed and the match was confirmed ‘gold. “It is essential to have this professional figure following us – says technical director Riccardo Vernole – as well as allowing us to make the right assessments immediately by giving feedback to the athletes on both qualifications and finals, it is also important for these situations. A similar event happened in 2018 in Dublin, there we managed to demonstrate that the last member of the 4 x 100 mixed relay team from Ukraine had started his freestyle leg with butterfly strokes”.
In the final of the 100m freestyle S9, swam yesterday at the Penteada in Funchal, with 53.45 the phenomenon Barlaam confirmed himself as the absolute record holder and strengthened his position at the top of the medal table, bringing his overall successes to 15.
Provisional medal table (day 5 of 7)
1. Italy 15 gold – 15 silver – 6 bronze
2. Ukraine 12 – 9 – 11
3. Great Britain 7 – 6 – 1
