Defending champion Mohd Ridzuan Mohd Puzi advanced to the final of the men's T36 100m (cerebral palsy) event at the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London, today.

The 2016 Rio Paralympics champion clocked 12.29 seconds to win the first heats at the London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in England, beating Rio Paralympics bronze medalist Rodrigo Parreira Da Silva of Brazil who set a season's best of 12.60s for second place while Ukraine's Roman Pavlyk also set a season's best by clocking 12.83s to finish third.

Rio Paralympics silver medalist Yang Yifei of China is expected to pose a great threat to Mohd Ridzuan after winning the second heats with an identical time of 12.29s while Great Britain's Ballard Graeme (12.66s) and Ciuksza Krzysztof of Poland (12.94s) finished in second and third places respectively.

Australian Davidson Brayden who finished fourth in the second heats with a time of 13.13s also booked his berth in the final scheduled at 3am on Sunday (Malaysian time) at the same venue.

The 29-year-old Perlis born, who holds the Paralympics record with a time of 12.07s which was set in Rio last Sept, won the Doha World Championships with a time of 12.08s in Qatar, two years ago.

If Mohd Ridzuan retains his gold, it would be Malaysia's third gold at the tournament after Muhamad Ziyad Zolkefli bagged the men's shot put F20 (learning disability) gold by smashing the world record with a distance of 17.29m while Abdul Latif Romly retained his men's long jump T20 (learning disability) gold last Saturday.

-- BERNAMA