First Gold Medal of the IPC Athletics World Championships is won. 22 Oct 2015

Aled Davies (coach: Ryan Spencer-Jones) won the team’s first gold medal of the IPC Athletics World Championships in the F42 Shot Put, throwing a championship record of 14.95m in the final round to take victory over the Iranian Saiad Mohammadian.

It had been a nervous competition from the Welshman after the Mohammadian took an early lead with an area record of 14.54m in the opening round. Opening throws of 14.19m and 14.35m followed by two fouls left the 24 year old needing something special to retain his world title from Lyon two years ago. He threw 14.88m in the penultimate round before he launched the shot out to 14.95m to claim gold, just 10 weeks after undergoing a hernia operation.

He commented after his victory: “It’s probably not the performance I wanted, but I came here and I won a major title and that’s what matters at the end of the day. I keep preaching that if it wasn’t for the medical team, I wouldn’t be here and also my coach Ryan Spencer-Jones. I made the move to him and technically I’m in good shape, and I knew I was the best athlete out there. I know I didn’t perform as well as I could have, but I got the gold medal and that’s what it’s all about.”

It is the second medal of the Championships for the British team after David Weir’s marathon silver staged in London in April, and the reigning double world and European champion was delighted to come through such a tough competition.

“When I got into the third round (lying in second place behind Iran’s Sajad Mohammadian) I was getting frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t execute with everything that I wanted to do. My head then turned to make sure that I won the competition because Mohammadian set the standard (a new area record of 14.54m) and a throw which was good enough for gold in London. Looking forward I’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again, but I had surgery (hernia) 10 weeks ago, so you’ve got to look at the bigger picture.”