In the final race of an action packed day, the 24-year-old world record holder in the event finished in 22min 16.83sec in front of just under 1,000 noisy spectators.

Kota Hokinoue of Japan picked up silver in 22:17.20, Prawat Wahoram of Thailand claimedbronze in 22:17.30 while Canada's 2010 London Marathon winner Josh Cassidy came in fourth.

Hug, who this morning qualified for the T54 800m final alongside Britain's David Weir, told insideworldparasport: "To pick up a gold on day one makes me feel great mentally.

"It is a tough competition with all the best athletes in the world here so it is a fantastic feeling to win and to be world champion.

"I will need to be at my best to claim more gold medals, especially when I go up against people like David Weir later this week, but I will be very happy with just one."

Kenya's Abraham Tarbei had claimed the first gold of the Championships with victory in a thrilling men's 5,000m T46 final that saw the world record holder and Paralympic champion outpace Ethiopia's Wondiye Fikre Indelbu to win with a time of 14:48.29. 

Indelbu recorded 14:48.48 and his teammate Tesfalem Gebru Kebede took bronze with 14:53.32.

One of the big shocks of the day came when Australia's Beijing 2008 triple gold medallist Evan O'Hanlon, who had predicted five gold medals for himself, failed to get on the podium in the men's F37/38 long jump.

O'Hanlon, a F38 cerebral palsy athlete, jumped only 6.01 metres to finish fourth place behind the Chinese gold medallist Yuxi Ma who set a world record of 6.07m.

Beijing long jump champion Mohamed Farhat Chida followed in second place with Ukraine's Andriy Onufriyenko third.

A disappointed O'Hanlon, who will now turn his attention to the T38 100m and 200m where he holds both world records, said: "For me long jump is my newest event and it's the most technical out of them so it's really different to just running as fast as I can.

"I'm really disappointed with my results but I'll just back up tomorrow for the 100m heats and make up for it."

In total, seven world records fell in a day of high standard competition. 

In the heats of the women's 200m T11, Brazil's Terezinha Guilhermina (pictured) outlined her intention to keep her world title with a world record of 24.74sec that saw her smash a 10-year-old mark.

United States racer Jessica Galli also smashed her own women's 100m T53 Championship record in the heats with a time of 17.57, only to see China's Lisha Huang lower it further in the very next heat to 16.94.

Karim Bettina of Algeria set a world record in the men's shot put F32/33 final and took gold with a throw of 10.89m while teammate Kamel Kardjenam took silver and also threw a world record in his disability class of 12.24m.

Czech Republic's Roman Musil took bronze throwing 11.07m while in the women's discus throw F12 Croatia's Marija Ivekovic took gold with a throw of 40.62m but was upstaged by silver medallist Liangmin Zhang of China who broke the world record in her class with a distance of 40.42m.

Tunisia's Mohamed Ali Krid after China's Ma claimed the first world record of the day in the men's long jump F37/38 final with his leap of 6.07m.

In the final field event of the day, France's Arnaud Assoumani broke his own world record from the Beijing Paralympics twice to win gold in the men's long jump F46.

His jump of 7.58m was enough to beat Iraq's Fadhill Al-Dabbagh who recorded 6.68m in silver and Azerbaijan's Huseyn Hasanov who jumped 6.52m to take bronze.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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