Sports
HOSTS China claimed a clean sweep in the men’s snowboard cross UL (upper limb) event as they continued their Winter Paralympic domination.
Teenager Ji Lijia, 19, beat team-mates Wang Pengyao and Zhu Yonggang at the Genting Snow Park near Beijing.
Britain’s James Barnes-Miller missed out after a crash in the semi-final but finished fifth overall after winning the small final.
Wu Zhongwei won another Chinese bronze in the men’s lower limb LL1 event.
Wu finished behind Canada’s world champion Tyler Turner and American Mike Schultz, the defending champion.
Britain’s Owen Pick and Ollie Hill failed to qualify for the semi-finals in the LL2 division, in which Finland’s Matti Suur-Hamari took gold.
In the women’s LL2 event, there was an emotional gold medal for French snowboarder Cecile Hernandez and a bronze for American Brenna Huckaby after both had initially feared they would miss the Games.
The pair won a legal battle in a German court to compete after they were initially blocked because they were “too disabled”.
Their LL1 class was removed by the International Paralympic Committee because of lack of numbers so they wanted to compete either in the LL2 event against women with a lower level of impairment or in the men’s LL1 event.
Although their claim was initially rejected in a court in Germany, where the IPC is based, the ruling was later overturned, allowing the pair to compete in China.
More magic from McKeever
There was yet another brilliant display from Canada’s Brian McKeever who won his 14th Winter Paralympic gold medal, and his 18th overall, after victory in the men’s long-distance cross-country visually impaired event.
The 42-year-old, who has said that Beijing will be his last Games, finished more than three minutes clear of his rivals over the 20km course.
At Vancouver 2010 he became the first Canadian to be named on both the Olympic and Paralympic teams, although in the end he was not selected for the Olympic 50km event.
He and guide Russell Kennedy made a strong start to be fastest at the opening checkpoint and built up their advantage, with American Jake Adicoff back in second.
McKeever goes again in Wednesday’s sprint event before his third individual event – the middle distance – on Saturday.
In the women’s long-distance cross-country visually impaired event, Ukraine’s Oksana Shyshkova won her second gold of the Games, after the 30-year-old took biathlon visually impaired sprint gold on Saturday.
BBC Sport
KN
Tags: China Ji Lijia Wang Pengyao Winter Paralympic Zhu Yonggang
