Nordic Skiing Season Finally Opens Season

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

PyeongChang 2018 Day Seven – Arendz Exorcises Sochi Ghosts

 

Mark Arendz celebrates his gold

 

PYEONGCHANG, Republic of Korea – After missing out on gold four years ago by just 0.7 of a second, Canadian Mark Arendz finally got his gold medal as he won the men’s biathlon 15km standing on Friday at the 2018 Paralympic Games in Korea.

Arendz was determined to not miss out this time and he took control of the race, cruising to the victory, obliterating the field. Arendz won by almost a minute, finishing 58.3 seconds ahead of Frenchman Benjamin Daviet.

“That 0.7 has been driving my training for four years. It’s a small thing that made a big impact over the last four years and finally to put it together here, to get that gold and by a fair margin too, that means everything. Everything has come together finally,” said Arendz after winning.

Four of the other five golds in the last day of biathlon competition were split between Germany and the Neutral Paralympic Athletes (NPA). Germany took the two sitting events while NPA claimed the women’s standing and visually impaired events.

Andrea Eskau continued her impressive career, winning her third Paralympic gold in the women’s sitting. Germany swept the sitting events as Martin Fegg was at the opposite end of his career, winning his first career Paralympic medal in the men’s event.

The women’s standing saw an NPA one-two as Anna Milenina claimed the win ahead of team mate Ekaterina Rumyantseva. A second NPA gold came in the women’s visually impaired as Mikhalina Lysova (Guide: Alexey Ivanov) claimed her fourth career biathlon gold.

Bibian Mentel-Spee continued her remarkable come back in what is likely to be her last Paralympic Games as she won her second gold of the Games in the women’s snowboard banked slalom SB-LL2. Mentel-Spee beat American Brittani Court, putting down an unassailable time after finishing third in the first run.

“I’m going to take it easy for a little while. These are probably my last Games. I might do a couple more competitions but probably not any more Games,” said Mentel-Spee.”[I hope to stay involved] just to bring it further and hopefully inspire a lot of kids out there with a physical disability to come out and play this wonderful sport.”

Joining Mentel-Spee in the snowboard sweeps was American Brenna Huckaby as she claimed the women’s snowboard banked slalom SB-LL1. That was the first of three American gold medals in the snowboard banked slalom as the men’s SB-UL was claimed by Mike Minor while Noah Elliott won the SB-LL1. Japan won its first ever snowboard gold medal as Narita Gurimu claimed the win in the men’s SB-LL2 with a stunning run.

There was a stunning result in the first wheelchair curling semi-final as Canada found themselves on the losing end against China. The win guarantees China its first Winter Paralympics medal, and overturned the result in the round robin.

The other semi-final saw a heartbreaking finish for the hosts as Norway edged Korea Republic in extra ends following a 6-6 score line after eight. Nerves just took over the Koreans at the death and it cost them dearly as Norway guaranteed itself a medal.