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≡ GAMES UPDATE ≡
Team USA continued roaring through the Cross Country Skiing program on Wednesday, scoring four more medals, including tree golds:
● Medal machine Oksana Masters got her third gold of these Games, winning the 10 km Classical sitting event in 26:31.6, a 20-second final margin over Korea’s Yun-ji Kim (26:51.6) and almost a minute over U.S. teammate Kendall Gretsch (27:27.6).
Masters is one of 13 athletes at Milan Cortina ‘26 with three medals so far, but the only one with three wins. At 36, she now has 11 Para Cross Country medals (5-4-2) and six Para Biathlon medals (3-3-0) and is the most decorated U.S. Winter Paralympian ever. She said afterwards:
“I’m feeling just so much pure joy and shock. I did not expect it at all, because in the first half of the race, I was [coming] from behind and really didn’t know if I could close that gap.
“I know that she [Kim] is such a strong skier on this course. “I’m just so proud to be able to bring home another gold for team USA.
“When you line up, you do everything you can. I know my team helped me with the skis, the prep, the nutrition, sports psychology and everything, and it’s just for me to go and execute, and nothing’s a given. I had to fight.
“My team was telling me my splits at every single place they could, and was literally saying, ’How bad do you want it?’ I wanted to dig deep to get this for Team USA.”
● Jake Adicoff got his second gold in as many days with a win in the visually-impaired men’s 10 km Classical – with guide Reid Goble – with a dominant victory in 28:03.6, with silver winner Inkki Inola (FIN: 29:52.3, with Reetu Inkila). Afterwards, Adicoff explained some confusion during the race:
“Another hard day, another pretty fun day, in a way. Some really hard skiing and hard conditions, but I’m just so happy to get the win today.
“We got a split in the last lap, that we were a minute or something up, and one of the coaches said, ’relax’, and then he also said, ’rip them to pieces’, so we were kind of confused. … The whole strategy with the race was to try and get a comfortable gap in the first two laps and then stay upright for the last two, and that’s what we did.”
● Sydney Peterson won the women’s 10 km Classical Interval Start standing race with a final time of 29:49.2, ahead of Vilde Nilsen (NOR: 29:51.8). She said later:
“I went out really hard, because I knew it was going to take everything I had to win today. About halfway, the splits turned the other way and Vilde started to close the gap on me. She’s such a strong skier, so I just tried to hold on and luckily it was enough. But you never know.
“She’s pushed me so much. She’s an amazing athlete, but more importantly she’s a very, very good person, she has amazing character and she works extremely hard, and is a very friendly competitor. I love having the opportunity to race against her.”
It was Peterson’s first individual Paralympic gold, after a mixed relay gold at Beijing 2022, and her fifth career Paralympic medal in all (2-2-1).
The U.S. now has 14 medals in all (6-5-3) and is second behind China (26: 10-7-9).
In Wheelchair Curling, the U.S. pair of Laura Dwyer and Stephen Emt finished fourth, losing in the bronze-medal match to Latvia, 11-10, in a wild match. The Americans scored four in the first and sixth ends, and Polina Rozkova and Agris Lasmans got five in the second and three in the seventh. Finally, the match was tied at 10 and the Latvians managed a ninth-end score for the bronze.
The four-time defending champion U.S. sled hockey team (3-0) will face the Czech Republic on Friday in one semifinal, while Canada and China will play in the other. The medal matches are on Sunday.
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