IT was close to a fairy tale finish for Carcoar’s Kurt Fearnley in his wheelchair marathon event at his final Paralympics, as he took silver behind his friend and rival Marcel Hug.
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The 35-year-old missed gold by just five metres – or one second on the clock – after a gruelling one-on-one contest with Switzerland’s Hug on Sunday.
The pair split from the pack early and went head-to-head for the rest of the five-lap event in sapping conditions at Rio's famous Copacabana beach. It was only within sight of the finish line that Hug, 30, broke the Australian.
“Marathons are just brutal, you know. You go out there and you control everything physically and you throw everything you've got at it,” an emotional Fearnley said
“With 200 (metres) to go … I had kind of stopped. Marcel was a very deserving winner.”
Fearnley’s silver means he’s won marathon medals at four straight Paralympics.
At the first – in Athens 2004 when he claimed gold – he had encouraging words for a then 18-year-old Hug, who’d picked up two bronze medals in wheelchair racing.
“I actually swapped my shirt with him that day because I actually said to him 'there's impressive things to come',” Fearnley said.
“I probably should have taken those nice words back. I wouldn't. I'm proud of him.”
While the legendary Australian athlete leaves Rio without the third marathon gold he so desperately sought there are no regrets. Thirteen medals from five Paralympics - including two marathon golds, one bronze and now a silver - can attest to that.
