French hurdler Wilfried Happio won the national title at the weekend despite running with an eyepatch after he was assaulted 20 minutes before his race.

Happio, 23, was warming up for the men’s 400m hurdles final at the national championships in Caen, northern France, on Saturday when he was attacked, taking several punches to the face.

“There was a big incident in the warm-up. Someone jumped on him and hit him,” Happio’s coach Olivier Vallaeys said.

“Some guy came out of nowhere and asked him if he was Wilfried Happio and then jumped on him. I managed to hold him back.

Continue reading this article on SportsDesk, the sports website of the Times of Malta

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.