First Minister of Sports to win a Paralympic medal: Carol-Eduard Novak sets world record

September 6, 2021

TOKYO, Japan--During the Tokyo Paralympic Games, Romanian road and track racing cyclist, Carol-Eduard Novak, who is also the Minister of Sports in Romania, won the silver medal in track cycling, men's C4 4000m individual pursuit race, thus setting the world record for being the World's First Minister of Sports to win a paralympic medal, according to the WORLD RECORD ACADEMY.

Cyclist Eduard Novak, Romania's minister of youth and sports, won the silver medal in track cycling, men's C4 4000m individual pursuit race on August 27, on the Izu Velodrome, at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

Photos: WRA, Getty Images, Romanian Government

"The minister is the most successful disabled athlete in Romania, for which he already won a gold and a silver in London 2012. His first Olympic medal was achieved in Beijing 2008, also silver. In total there are already four. He has also been a five-time world champion and a three-time European champion," the Today in 24 reports.

Romanian Paralympic cyclist Eduard Novak said on his return from the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, that he dedicates his silver medal to Ivan Patzaichin, multiple Olympic canoeing medalist dead at 71.

Initially, a speed skater, Carol Novak lost one of his feet in a car accident in 1996. Subsequently, he switched to cycling and emerged as a professional cyclist. He took part in his first Paralympics in 2004, followed by two more participation in 2008 and 2012.

Carol Novak took part in his first Paralympics in 2004, followed by two more participation in 2008 and 2012.

Carol Eduard Novak won a silver medal in the road race at the Beijing Games, becoming the country's first ever Paralympic medalist. Novak also added two 4th places to his results tally. For his achievement, he was awarded the Order of Sports Merit by the President of Romania.

At the 2008 Paralympic Games, Novak won the silver medal in the individual time trial, thus capturing Romania's first-ever Paralympic medal.

At the 2012 Games, he reached further milestones by winning the gold medal in the 1-kilometre (0.62-mile) track pursuit event – the first-ever in the country's Paralympic history – and setting a new world-record time en route to the final. Additionally, he collected a silver medal in the road time trial race.

The Paralympic Games or Paralympics, also known as the Games of the Paralympiad, is a periodic series of international multi-sport events involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power (e.g. paraplegia and quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome, spina bifida), impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency (e.g. amputation or Dysmelia), leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual impairment. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games. The Paralympic Games are organized in parallel with the Olympic Games.