TOBLACH, Italy — After cancelled events in Poland last week the Nordic Skiing system finally got underway this weekend in Toblach.
The United States came away with four wins in the 10km classical events. Jake Adicoff (Guide: Jake Brown) won the men’s vision impaired double, finishing in a time of 30:37.9 in the time trial, just clear of Zebasitian Modin (SWE, Guide: Emil Joensson) who had a factored time of 30:53.4. Thursday’s finish was even closer, a one second win for Adicoff in the mass start, Modin just couldn’t close the gap.
The other US golds were won by a familiar face, Oksana Masters, finishing just 20 seconds clear of teammate Kendall Gretsch to win the women’s sitting races both days.
North America wasn’t done with medals in the 10km classical races there; Canadian Mark Arendz claimed the men’s standing race finishing almost one minute ahead of his nearest rival. His was the only win that wasn’t repeated in the mass start race, swapping second place with Japanese skier Taiki Kawayoke.
His teammate Brittany Hudak medaled in the women’s standing interval start, finishing a distant second to Norwegian great Vilde Nilsen before finishing third in the mass-start which was again won by Nilsen.
The hosts had something to cheer about in the men’s sitting which was claimed by Giuseppe Romele who beat out Ukrainian Pavlo Bal twice. This race saw more medals the Canadians with Derek Zaplotinsky claiming bronze in both races.
Germany dominated the women’s vision impaired races with Linn Kazmaier (Guide: Florian Baumann) finishing well in front of her teammate Leonie Maria Walter (Guide: Christian Krasman) to win both races.
Sundays saw the event switch to freestyle after the sprit races were cancelled. It opened with another home gold for Romele to sweep the men’s sitting classification. This time it was Brazilian Cristian Westemaier Barrera who finished second, relegating Bal to bronze.
Masters also completed her sweep, again beating teammate Gretsch, by just five seconds, as the two set a marker for the rest of the field to try and catch next week in Martell.
The men’s standing saw a drastically different result on Sunday with German Marco Meier claiming gold with Arendz not starting the race. Serheii Romaniuk (UKR) finished in second just seven seconds back. Nilsen completed her sweep of the women’s standing events easily, more than a minute ahead of Ukrainian duo Oleksandra Kononova and Liudmyla Liashenko.
Adicoff completed his sweep of the men’s vision impaired races, putting the Americans top of the medal table with six. The German domination of the women’s standing was broken in the freestyle race when Simona Bubenickova (CZE) claimed the gold by seven seconds from Kazmaier.
Photos: Newspower.it
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