2024-09-07 17:32:29
Sandra Mikolaschek went into the Paralympic table tennis final as a clear outsider. But the 27-year-old impressed with a strong performance.
Sandra Mikolaschek has surprisingly won the tenth German gold medal at the Paralympics in Paris. The 27-year-old from Lutherstadt Eisleben defeated the Serbian world number one Borislava Peric-Rankovic in the final of the WS4 starting class. After a strong performance, the table tennis player triumphed 3:1 (11:5, 11:3, 6:11, 11:8) and celebrated the greatest success of her career.
Mikolaschek gave an almost flawless performance in front of 6,800 spectators in the Arena Sud 4, repeatedly surprising the Rio winner Peric-Rankovic with her variable game. Mikolaschek was not put off by the loss of the third set. Instead, she converted her first match point a short time later and rewarded herself with her first medal in her third Paralympics participation after two previous fifth places.
Fifth German para table tennis medal
Mikolaschek had defeated the Chinese Gu Xiadon 3:1 (1:11, 11:3, 12:10, 13:11) in the morning. The world champion in mixed doubles showed a comeback after being down a set against her Asian opponent, who had already won gold in doubles and bronze in mixed doubles in Paris.
Mikolaschek rounded off the strong performance of the German table tennis players with the first gold and the fifth medal overall. The doubles Thomas Schmidberger/Valentin Baus and Juliane Wolf/Stephanie Grebe had already won silver. Schmidberger celebrated another silver medal in the singles, while Wolf also won bronze in the singles.