Weather conditions disrupted the para Alpine skiing at the Winter Paralympics on Thursday as warm temperatures meant that even with an earlier-than-planned start time, the artificial snow at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre was melting as athletes attempted the technically difficult giant slalom course. Temperatures had been forecast to rise to as high as 23C (73F).
Austria’s 16-year-old Johannes Aigner secured his second gold and fourth medal overall of these Games in the men’s visually impaired class, finishing 1.68sec ahead of the defending champion Giacomo Bertagnolli of Italy. The final two runs of Aigner and Bertagnolli pushed Britain’s Neil Simpson into fifth, meaning he couldn’t add to the two medals he has already won in Beijing.
And there was heartbreak for the Slovak Marek Kubacka, who finished fourth. Kubacka lost his sight aged nine, and was the only completely blind athlete in the men’s para alpine visually impaired field. In order for him to compete, guide Maria Zatovicova carries a loudspeaker on her that emits a constant sound and her instructions so that he can judge how to follow the course. As a B1 classified athlete, to compensate for the slower speed he skis at, his clock runs at 60.53% of real time. His margin on missing out on the podium ended up being 1.55 seconds.
In the men’s standing giant slalom, Santeri Kiiveri of Finland won gold by just 0.04sec from Thomas Walsh of the US, who crossed the line appearing to believe that he had done enough to secure the victory. Britain’s James Whitley finished sixth, moving up from 12th at the halfway stage after putting in a sensational second run which saw him leading the event for a time. On the day only the bronze medallist Arthur Bauchet of France went faster than Whitley’s second run time of 57.3sec.
The final event of the para Alpine skiing on Thursday was the men’s sitting giant slalom, with athletes having to cope with a course that was rutted and cut-up from the earlier runs. That led to a series of crashes, including for Jeroen Kampschreur of the Netherlands on the penultimate run, who looked all set for a medal until losing control. Norway’s Jesper Pedersen made it look easy in the end, with a victory by over three seconds. Rene de Silvestro of Italy took silver, Liang Zilu won bronze for the hosts. But it was agony for Argentina’s Enrique Plantey, as Pedersen’s finish pushed him off the podium, and he ended up fourth, missing out on his nation’s first ever Winter Paralympics medal.
China have consolidated their lead in the medal table, with 31 medals overall, including 10 golds. Canada remain second with seven golds, and Ukraine third with six.
The warm temperatures have caused organisers to reschedule some events on the final three days of the Paralympics. The snowboard banked slalom finals have been moved from Saturday to Friday, and all remaining Alpine skiing events are set to start 90 minutes earlier than previously scheduled. Nevertheless the Games’ vice-president, Yang Shu’an, said: “I can tell you that the snow sports competition in the Winter Paralympics has been very smooth. Athletes, delegations and technical officials are very satisfied. We need to find the window, the best time for our competition schedules. If we encounter the impact of extreme weather, we will immediately start relevant plans.”
Conditions can be more controlled in the indoor venues, and at Beijing’s “Ice cube”, with no chance of qualifying for the semi-finals, the British curling team were playing for pride on Thursday. Gary Smith was deputising for the injured David Melrose, but could not help the team avoid a 6-3 defeat to defending champions China in their morning match. That ensured that the hosts will qualify for the next stage, and results elsewhere mean that Sweden and Canada will join them in Friday’s semi-finals. The British rallied to win their final match 8-4 against Latvia, a result that confirmed Slovakia as the last semi-finalist.
It was a rest day for the para ice hockey squads on Thursday, with the cancellation of the seventh/eighth place play-off match, as the expulsion of the Russian squad left only seven teams in the tournament. On Friday the Czech Republic and Italy will play off for fifth place, sandwiched between the two semi-finals: Canada v South Korea and China v the USA.