Evgenii Shvetcov

Shvetcov came to world attention as an athlete at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London where he entered the 100m and 400m sprints and the 800m middle-distance race. In the 100m he qualified through his heat in first position in a time of 12.11s, a new Paralympic record. In the final he shave three thousands of that record, taking the Paralympic title and pushing Graeme Ballard (Great Britain) and Roman Pavlyk (Ukraine) into silver and bronze positions.[1] There were no qualifier rounds for the 400m T36 event and Shvetcov's results leading into the Games were strong enough to see him in the final. The podium finish of the 400m saw another Britain take silver, Paul Blake and Pavlyk again take bronze, while Shetcov's final time of 53.31s set a new world record giving him the gold medal.[1] For Shetcov's third event of the Paralympic Games, the 800m, he arrived as one of the title favourites, having set a new world record a few months earlier when he ran 2:05.05 at the 2012 European Championships in Stadskanaal.[2] In the Paralympic final he maintained his form to finish just outside his record with a time of 3:05:34 pushing fellow Russian Artem Arefyev into second place.[1]

The next year Shvetcov entered the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon as one of the favourites. He failed to disappoint picking up four gold medals, this time all in the sprint events. In contrast to the Paralympics he added the 200m and 4 × 100 m relay to his roster, and showed his class by setting a new world record in the heats of the T36 100m, recording a time of 11.92s, the first time a T36 athlete has run under 12 seconds. He then went on to beat his own world record the next day when he took gold in the final with a time of 11.90 seconds.

Shvetcov added two more international gold medals when he travelled to Swansea in Wales to compete in the 2014 IPC Athletics European Championships. In poor weather conditions he added retained his 100m title from Stadskanaal and added the 200m title. The following year he suffered a rare defeat when he was beaten by Ballard in the 100m at the Berlin Grand Prix.[3] Shvetcov was keen to regain his World Championship titles, and his new training regime focused on the sprint events, including his favourite distance, the 400m.[3]