U.S. skiers win two medals on second day of alpine world championships

Paralympians Danelle Umstead and Andrew Kurka took home silver and bronze medals, respectively, in today’s super-G competition at the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships in Panorama, British Columbia.

Following her silver-medal performance in yesterday’s downhill race, Umstead (Park City, Utah) and guide Rob Umstead (Park City, Utah) won their second medal of the world championships with a second place finish in the women’s super-G visually impaired class. The downhill results mirrored today’s with Australia’s Melissa Perrine and guide Andrew Bor winning their second world title. Umstead finished three seconds ahead of second place and 2013 world champion Aleksandra Frantceva with guide Semen Pliaskin of Russia in the first race of the day.

The top three finishers in the men’s super-G sitting competition were separated by less than a second. Andrew Kurka (Palmer, Alaska) navigated a fast course that put him .91 seconds behind winner Corey Peters of New Zealand and .12 seconds behind France’s Frederic Francois in second.

Kurka came off of a sixth place finish in yesterday’s men’s downhill sitting class to move up to the podium in super-G. Kurka’s podium finish comes a little more than three months after he broke his femur in a skiing accident, and only a month after returning to the snow. He has had success on this course before, winning downhill gold last January at the 2014 IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup in Panorama.

"I came to world championships just hoping to put down some solid runs and the fact that I ended up on the podium is an added bonus," Kurka said.

Stephanie Jallen came close to the podium in the women’s super-G standing division, finishing fourth by .76 seconds to third place Mariia Papulova of Russia.

Today’s full super-G race results are available at Paralympic.org.

Competition continues on Saturday, Mar. 7 with the super combined events. Live streaming and play-back coverage of the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships is available on USParalympics.org.

For more information, please contact Brianna Tammaro, U.S. Paralympics, at 719-237-2179 or Brianna.Tammaro@usoc.org.

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