Photo: Tânia Rêgo / Agência Brasil via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
Vegan Paralympian Elena Congost crossed the line third in the women's T12 marathon at the Paris Paralympics on Sunday, September 8, but was stripped of the bronze medal for briefly letting go of her guide's tether to stop him from falling.
Just meters from the finish, her guide Mia Carol Bruguera, 57, was cramping badly. Congost reached out to grab his arm and dropped her end of the tether. T12 runners must stay tethered to their guide for the whole race and the rules make no exceptions, so officials disqualified her and gave the bronze to Japan's Misato Michishita, Canadian Running reports. Morocco's Fatima El Idrissi won in a world record 2:48:36. Congost also lost a personal best of just over three hours.
The 36-year-old Spaniard, who was born with a degenerative vision impairment, won this event at Rio 2016 and took 1500m silver at London 2012. She came back to the sport after the birth of her fourth child. She told Marca:
I would like everyone to know that I have not been disqualified for cheating, but rather I have been disqualified for being a person and for an instinct that comes to you when someone is falling.
Congost went vegan around 2009 for ethical, environmental and health reasons, according to her Wikipedia biography, which draws on her own blog. She credits the change with a big improvement in her anemia and digestive problems, which had left her struggling before the switch.
Other plant-based athletes have had a golden summer in Paris. Vivian Kong won épée gold, Diana Taurasi won a record sixth Olympic gold and Eleanor Harvey won Canada's first Olympic fencing medal. Over in the US, vegan ultrarunner Harvey Lewis has won Badwater 135 twice.
A medal lost, but no regrets. Powered by plants and by kindness.