Three-time Paralympic medalists Mark Bathum (Mercer Island, Washington) and guide Cade Yamamoto (Quincy, Washington) stayed golden on Wednesday to close out downhill racing at the IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup Finals in Aspen, Colorado. The duo dominated the men’s visually impaired division with their second straight victory to catalyze a three-medal performance for Team USA.
"It’s great snow because you can really hold an edge on it," Bathum said. "It’s a terrific course, great hill preparation and a fantastic hill to run the race on so all in all, it was really fun for us."
Bathum and Yamamoto rode off their success from Tuesday’s win to the top of the podium again in the second downhill race contested in Aspen. They defeated world champion Mac Marcoux and guide BJ Marcoux of Canada (1:12.81) en route to gold with a time of 1:12.04. The podium mirrored that of yesterday with Russia’s Ivan Frantsev and guide German Agranovskii claiming the third spot.
Paralympians Stephanie Jallen (Harding, Pennsylvania) and Laurie Stephens (Wenham, Massachusetts) flashed back-to-back silver medals to complete the downhill medal haul for Team USA. Jallen (1:18.90) made it a tight race with France’s Marie Bochet in the women’s standing class, finishing just over two-tenths of a second behind the Paralympic and world champion (1:18.66). Bochet, who’s dominated the world cup circuit this season, punctuated her overall downhill title win yesterday with another victory to remain unbeaten.
"A lot of it has to do with my mindset with the fact that I’m getting older now and have a little more race experience under my belt," Jallen said. "I didn’t win today but for me to be this close [to Marie], that was a personal win for me. It really raised my confidence and I was really happy to know that I can get close to her and maybe even beat her in the future."
In the women’s sitting race, Stephens closed in on German Paralympic champion Anna Schaffelhuber (1:20.89), finishing just .17 of a second from victory with a time of 1:21.06. Germany completed the podium with Anna-Lena Forster taking third in 1:22.62.
Podium performances weren’t the only strong efforts for Team USA. Competing in his first world cup of the season, Josh Elliott (Yakima, Washington) finished fourth in the men’s sitting class ahead of U.S. teammate Stephen Lawler (Burlington, Vermont) in fifth. Canadian world champion Kurt Oatway (1:12.93) raced away with the win as Austria’s Roman Rabl took second (1:14.43) and Japan’s Paralympic champion Akira Kano was third (1:14.91).
Danelle Umstead (Park City, Utah) and guide Rob Umstead (Park City, Utah) finished just off of the podium in the women’s visually impaired race with a time of 1:25.38. Millie Knight and guide Brett Wild (1:19.70) led a second consecutive British sweep.
New Zealand’s Adam Hall (1:14.71) rose from third place yesterday to upset Austria’s Paralympic champion Markus Salcher (1:14.81) and Russia’s world champion Aleksey Bugaev (1:14.91) in a tight finish.
Super-G will mark the final races of the world cup finals in Aspen on Thursday and Friday with more than 50 athletes from 17 countries competing for overall titles. For updates, follow U.S. Paralympics on Facebook and Twitter with results available on the IPC website.
For more information, please contact Brianna Tammaro, U.S. Paralympics, at 719-866-2068 or Brianna.Tammaro@usoc.org.
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
