Skier adds silver in Super-G
Corey Peters has won his second medal of the Beijing Paralympics in less than 24 hours — a silver in the Super-G event.
Super-G is Peters’ favoured event.
His precision skiing worked in his favour on the challenging course, which has a very technical steep pitch as well as a final flat which requires some quick skiing, keeping the skis flat and running as fast as possible.
Describing himself as “ecstatic”, the New Plymouth Para alpine skier explained how the conditions helped.
“It was warmer so the snow did change. It was softer and more peely at the top and at the bottom but in the middle steep section it was still quite firm. It’s like a knife through butter, you can do anything on it. It’s just really good conditions for ski racing. It’s the snow that I like to race on.”
This follows him scoring a gold medal in the sitting downhill event, the first for New Zealand in this Paralympics.
The podium in the Super-G looked remarkably similar to the downhill, with the same three contenders taking medals: this time Norway’s Jesper Pedersen in first place, Peters in second, and Japan’s Tiaki Morii adding another bronze to his collection.
Both Morii (41) and Peters (38) are veterans of multiple Paralympic Winter Games — this is Peters’ third and Morii’s fifth Paralympics — showing that experience really does count.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson was among those praising Peters, saying on Twitter that “he is a legend, in his third games and absolutely slaying it!”
Peters, a previous silver and bronze medallist, caught a mild case of Covid-19 while training in Colorado over the new year.
“It’s been a bit weird and I suspect everyone is sick of hearing about Covid but it’s been the talk of our buildup the past couple of years,” he said recently.
“It hasn’t been the best buildup I’ve ever had but I’ve got the experience behind me so just got to try and bank on that I guess.”