Teenage sprinter Isis Holt has made her debut at the Paralympics, and managed to bag a silver medal in the process.
The 15 year-old reigning world champion and world record holder missed out on gold to China’s Xia Zhou by just 0.09 seconds during the 100m final in the T35 category, but her awesome display today means she’s Australia’s newest sweetheart. And there’s still plenty of time for Holt to walk away with more medals – you can follow her progress this weekend, as she competes in the 4x100m relay on Friday, then the 200m on Saturday.
The student from Melbourne, who has cerebral palsy, has said in the past that she wants to be just like track legend Usain Bolt, who won a hat-trick in the same three titles in the Olympics last month.
“He’s amazing to watch and I would love to be like that some day,” she said. “Obviously our names are very similar, which is very fun.” We can already see the comparisons coming her way!”
Holt, who was the youngest of the five teenagers competing in today’s race, was in the lead right until the very last minute. But, despite just missing out on the fastest time, she gave a very sensible interview afterwards where she discussed working with other young athletes.
“We’re all together in this. It makes it less scary,” she said
The Year 9 athlete then went on to talk about managing a busy training schedule alongside her schoolwork, saying:
“Sometimes I definitely feel like I’m missing out on a normal teenager’s life, but who would go for that over this? I wouldn’t change it.”
Talent, dedication and a calm head on her young shoulders; could we be seeing Australia’s next big sporting superstar growing right in front of our eyes? Let’s hope so!
Meanwhile, after bagging several medals in the past few days, Australia has jumped to a fifth ranking on the medal board with 10 gold, 21 silver and 20 bronze medals. Above us is China coming first, followed by Great Britain, Ukraine and the US.
