Paul Karabardak admitted exhaustion got the better of him as the emotion of winning his first Paralympic medal finally caught up.
Swansea’s Karabardak, 36, was starting to fear he’d never crack the table tennis podium at these Games after medal near misses in Beijing, London and Rio.
He guaranteed a bronze with his quarter-final win but found American Ian Seidenfeld too hot to handle in his semi-final, losing in three straight games.
“It was really difficult because I was tired after the emotion of yesterday,” admitted Karabardak.
“If you put that aside Ian played superbly and he deserved to win. Even if I was at my best and even if I was fresh I think I would have struggled to live with him the way he was playing.
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“It is fantastic to have got that bronze medal and it means everything to me. I thought it was slipping away so it is a dream for me because I have won a lot in my career. I’ve had some good wins and I’ve won World and European medals but it wouldn’t have been the career I would have wanted without a Paralympic medal.”
Fellow Welsh player Tom Matthews is competing at his first Games but he secured bronze after a semi-final defeat in his class to world champion Hyeon Uk Kim.
“It’s my first Games so I’ve got to be proud of coming home with a medal – I didn’t think I’d do that,” he said.
“This has given me massive motivation. I can’t wait to get back to training. I’ll have a bit of time off now, have a bit of a break to reflect and come back stronger.”
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Meanwhile, Mumbles rower Benjamin Pritchard stormed to a Paralympic record as he booked his place in Sunday’s men’s singles sculls final.
Pritchard, 29, is competing at only his second international competition and needed to come through a repechage after he was edged out by defending champion Roman Polianskyi in Friday’s heats.
And he responded with a personal best time at the Sea Forest Waterway.
“I felt I didn’t row to my best standard in the heats, so this was about getting the nerves out the system,” said Pritchard, who – along with Karabardak – is able to train full-time and benefit from world class facilities, technology, coaching and support teams thanks to National Lottery funding.
“The Spanish guy pushed me the whole way and that was a lot harder than I expected.
“I was hoping for a little bit of an easier ride than that, but we’ve trained well and hopefully I have saved some beans for the final.
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“We are all fierce competitors and we all like to push each other as hard as we can, but off the field, we’re all good mates.
“I think that makes the event even more interesting because you’re racing your friends tooth and nail. I just want it to be the final now, hopefully I’ll have a shiny bit of metal at the end of it.”
Pritchard’s only disappointment is he is missing the party being thrown in his honour back home in Wales.
“I’m told it’s been mental,” he added. “It’ll be a long party, I’d imagine, going on all the way to the final!”
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