- I received heartbreaking news after the opening ceremony
- He leaves the Games with a silver and a bronze
Madison de Rozario has revealed she considered returning to Australia and abandoning her Paralympic campaign after receiving the news, hours after being the flag bearer at the opening ceremony, that her father had died.
De Rozario won silver in the T54 marathon on Sunday, adding to the bronze she won in the 5000m earlier in the Games.
The 30-year-old was beaten by Catherine Debrunner in the marathon race, and the Swiss athlete claimed her fifth gold medal in Paris, in addition to the silver she won in the 100 metres.
De Rozario finished 4 minutes and 23 seconds behind the Swiss, but explained after the race that preparation for the defence of her marathon crown had been affected by the news of the death of her father Roy.
The wheelchair racer was the flag bearer for the Australian team at the opening ceremony, but in the following hours she was informed that her father had died.
“When you get news like that for the first time, the option to go home is there and it feels like the right thing to do,” de Rozario said.
“I feel very fortunate that when I was thinking about it, the first thing my family said to me was, ‘Don’t come home.’ There was a very clear instruction that I had to do that.
Turns out I’d rather be in a Paralympic Village with 160 of my best friends.
Australian flag bearer Madison de Rozario won a silver medal in the T54 marathon on Sunday.
She revealed after the race that her father died hours after the opening ceremony on August 28.
‘I think for a group of people who had no idea what kind of week I was having, they were the people I wanted to be around.’
De Rozario was informed by her mother shortly after leading the Australian team down the Champs-Élysées.
Overall, coach Louise Sauvage managed to keep the runner focused on the task at hand, except perhaps in the moments leading up to her heats for the 5000m event.
“Lou and I always hug each other before the race,” de Rozario said. “I started crying for Louise.
‘Our poor mechanic said, ‘She’s not normally this stressed, it’s just hellishly hot; why are you so worried about this?’
De Rozario said his father’s character traits had a big influence on his maturity as an athlete.
“I’m like a lot of young women, we have complicated relationships with our fathers,” de Rozario said.
“But I think the person I am owes a lot to him. We were homeschooled for many years and he homeschooled us.
“I think as I’ve gotten older, some of the parts I’m really proud of are because of him.”
De Rozario’s silver on Sunday was her eighth Paralympic medal, but she was the first to admit she faces an uphill battle to match Debrunner’s dominant strength.
Madison De Rozario received the devastating news hours after leading the Australian team in the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
After winning the marathon title, the Swiss leaves Paris with five gold medals after also winning the 400m, 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m.
“One of the interesting things about sport is that it has no real limit,” de Rozario said.
‘I could go to Tokyo and win the 800 metres and the marathon, setting a world record.
‘Three years later, my world record has been beaten by nine seconds.
“Not even being within sight of the gold medal in the marathon (shows) that our sport is evolving a lot.”
