Drought-breaker doubles medal haul
SNOWBOARDER Simon Patmore won Australia’s fourth medal at the PyeongChang Winter Paralympics, adding a bronze medal in banked slalom to his droughtbreaking gold.
Patmore clocked 51.99sec on the last of his three runs yesterday to finish 1.22sec behind American winner Mike Minor, with Austria’s Patrick Mayrhofer second.
The 30-year-old Patmore, who has Erb’s palsy and competes in the upper-limb disabil- ity class, clinched Australia’s first Winter Paralympics gold medal since Michael Milton and fellow alpine skier Bart Bunting at Salt Lake City in 2002 when he won the snowboard cross on Monday.
He was placed second after his second slalom run yesterday but was bumped down in the finale by Minor, who shaved more than three seconds off his time.
Patmore had to improve his time on his final run to hold off Italian Jacopo Luchini, who finished fourth 0.03sec behind.
Fellow Australian Games debutant Sean Pollard was fifth, 3.07sec off the pace.
“I had no expectations going into banked slalom,” Patmore said.
“I definitely did have a little confidence boost after the gold medal.
“I knew the boards were running fast so when I came down the course the first time and put down a good time, I thought: ‘Well, it’s game on.’
“It was intense up there.”