In the humid heat of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Hungarian athlete Luka Ekler celebrated an early birthday gift by smashing her own world record to claim gold in the women’s long jump T38 at the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships. Turning 27 later this month, Ekler soared 5.91 meters on Wednesday, topping her previous mark of 5.82 meters from Paris three years ago.
Ekler, already a two-time Paralympic long jump champion, dominated the field right away. Facing tough competition from Colombia’s Angie Nicoll Mejia Morales and Karen Tatiana Palomque Moreno—who grabbed gold and silver in the 100m earlier this week—she nailed 5.86 meters on her second jump and pushed it to 5.91 meters on her fifth. Every one of her three valid jumps would have secured her sixth world championships gold, including three in long jump.
The excitement didn’t stop there. American sprinter Jaydin Blackwell, just 21, set a new world record of 48.00 seconds in the men’s 400m T38 final. Fresh off his championships record win in the 100m T38 on Sunday, Blackwell cruised to victory, repeating his double-gold haul from the 2024 Kobe World Championships and Paris Paralympics.
In the men’s shot put F20, neutral para athlete Oleksandr Yarovyi from Ukraine led a 1-2 finish with teammate Maksym Koval. Yarovyi hurled 17.73 meters on his third throw for a world record, fending off a strong challenge from Malaysia’s Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, who hit over 17 meters twice. These feats pushed the total world records at the New Delhi 2025 event to 18 after just five days of competition.
Heartbreak struck Iran’s Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani in the women’s 400m T12 final. She led from the gun but stumbled short of the line, losing gold by a mere hundredth of a second to neutral para athlete Anna Kulinich-Sorokina.
Over in the women’s 100m T11, Brazil’s Jerusa Geber stole the show with a championships record of 11.81 seconds, beating China’s Liu Yiming by a full half-second despite Yiming’s personal best of 12.11 seconds. That win helped Brazil hold onto the top spot on the medal table, with 8 golds, 15 silvers, and 7 bronzes. China sits second at 7-9-5, followed by Poland’s 6-1-5 and host India in fourth with 4-4-1.
As the championships continue, fans are buzzing about more para athletics stars breaking barriers in New Delhi.
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