NAHA, Japan (Kyodo) — Wheelchair racer Hirokazu Ueyonabaru, who won a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, died on Saturday after being seriously injured in a road accident earlier in the month in Okinawa Prefecture in southern Japan, local police said.
Ueyonabaru, 55, had been in critical condition after he was rear-ended by a car while training in a racing wheelchair on a road in Uruma on Okinawa’s main island.
He won a silver medal in the men’s wheelchair T52 marathon at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, as well as bronze medals in both the men’s 1,500-meter and 400-m races at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021.