CHINA CREATES NEW RECORD WITH 25 MEDALS BY THIRD DAY
Host country sweeps podium in men’s snowboard cross upper limb impaired event in all-China final
China’s gold rush continued on day three of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games.
The hosts made a clean sweep of the Para snowboard men’s cross upper limb impaired event yesterday in an all-China, four-person final.
The four finalists were making their Paralympic debut, but it was 19-year-old Ji Lijia who topped the podium at the end of an eventful run.
Halfway through the race, Zhang Yiqi, who was in third position, lost his balance and fell, taking his teammate Zhu Yonggang down with him. Wang Pengyao stormed through to clinch the silver, while Zhu recovered to claim the bronze.
The all-Chinese final emerged when Ji and Zhu earned a one-two finish in the first semi-final, followed by the other one-two made by Wang and Zhang in the second semi-final.
There was more hardware for China in the women’s super combined with Zhu Daqing winning the silver in the vision impaired finals behind Slovak alpine skier and nine-time Paralympic champion Henrieta Farkasova.
Farkasova is arguably the most dominant force in alpine skiing. She left the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games as the most decorated athlete with four golds and one silver in the women’s vision impaired alongside her guide Natalia Subrtova.
In the women’s super combined standing, Zhang Megqiu added a silver to the hosts’ growing medal collection, while in the women’s super combined sitting, Liu Sitong held on for the bronze.
Liu’s bronze paved the way for a tense stand-off between Germany’s gold medal winner Anna-Lena Forster and Japan’s Momoka Muraoka, who took the silver.
Muraoka topped the super-G phase of the competition early yesterday, building a 6.07-second buffer over Forster, but the German’s aggressive ski in the slalom saw her clock a time 6.84 seconds faster in the more technical of the two races that make up the super combined event.
Forster’s gold denied Japan’s Momoka Muraoka her third gold of the Beijing Paralympics. Muraoka, who won the gold in the giant slalom at the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, still has the slalom and giant slalom skiing events remaining at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre.
Should she win one more gold in China, she will become the first Japanese to collect four career Winter Paralympic titles. She will also equal the record for the most gold medals won by a Japanese athlete at a single Winter Games.
China’s medals on day three of competition continue to smash all previous records for the host nation. China now boasts a massive 25 medals, including seven golds. This is double the medal haul of any country, including the traditionally strong Team USA, who has so far taken a total of eight medals, including one gold. China’s closest competitors so far are Ukraine and Canada, each of whom have four golds.
One of the most inspiring gold medals of the Games so far comes via Canadian snowboarder Tyler Turner.
The 33-year-old lost both his legs below the knee after a parachuting accident in 2017, but on Monday rode away with the gold in the men’s Para snowboard cross.
Turner, 33, dominated his quarter final, semi-final and final as he grabbed early leads and completely outdistanced himself from his opponents. Mike Schultz of the USA took the silver and Wu Zhongwei of China was third.
He won a World Cup event last year and then collected two golds and a bronze at the recent world championships which included a victory in the snowboard cross.
“It’s been a wild ride. The first couple of years were a really tough grind,” Turner told the media after the final. “Snowboarding is my favourite thing on earth.”