Clean sweep of medals in Snowboard for China, Japan add to their Gold tally.
The Para Snowboard got underway at the Zhangjiakou Genting Snow Park today, day three of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games and China managed to pull off the rare feat of taking all three spots on the podium in the Snowboard Cross Men’s SB-UL event. This was really a foregone conclusion as the Chinese contingent dominated the Quarterfinal races to secure five of the eight semi-final spots and then in these got the top two places to ensure an all Chinese final.
Nineteen year-old Lijia JI from Hebei Province came out on top to win the Gold medal, ahead of Pengyao WANG (Silver) and Yonggang ZHU (Bronze). In the Men’s SB LL1 event, Zhongwei WU claimed the fourth medal of the day in Snowboarding for China winning Bronze.
Back at the Para Alpine Skiing it was the Super Combined event, which combines the time across two runs; a speed event (Super G) and a technical event (Slalom). The Gold medals proved elusive for Asian countries but China’s Daqing ZHU (Silver, Women’s VI) and Mengqiu ZHANG (Silver, Women’s Standing) and Japan’s Momoka MURAOKA (Silver, Women’s Sitting) all won their third medal of the Games, meaning that they have been on the podium in every event so far. China’s Sitong LIU won Bronze in the Women’s Sitting event too.
In Para Cross Country, it was the day of the Long Distance Classical Technique events. This saw a clean sweep for Asia in the Standing event, with Japan’s Taiki KAWAYOKE taking the Gold, having led from the first time-check and China’s Jiayun CAI (Silver) and Mingyang QIU (Bronze) completing the set. Mongolia’s Ganbold BATMUNKH came 12th in this event.
In Wheelchair Curling, Korea and China met in the morning. The match was even at the end of the fifth end with both teams on 4 apiece. China then scored five in the sixth end and Korea conceded. China then went back out onto the ice to face Switzerland who had been on the end of 15-1 defeat against Great Britain earlier in the day. In a tight game, China were leading 5-4 going into the final end, they ended up 7-4 winners. This puts them tied for third place in the standings with Latvia, although there are still lots of games to go.
At the end of day three, China still lead the medal table with 25 medals, including 7 Golds. Japan lie in fourth place.
Tomorrow the only medals will be awarded in Para Biathlon but Wheelchair Curling will continue the Round Robin with Korea taking on Canada and Slovakia, and China facing the USA. Para Ice Hockey resumes after a rest day and Korea will face Canada in a game which will decide if they head straight to the Semi-finals and China will face Italy.
