After his second place in the biathlon sprint, Marco Maier also won the silver medal in the cross-country freestyle sprint on Wednesday (March 9th, 2022). The 22-year-old short-distance specialist defied the poor outside conditions with warm plus degrees and correspondingly wet snow on the slopes.
In the final of the standing class after 1,357 meters, Maier was only beaten by Frenchman Benjamin Daviet, 1.3 seconds behind, but defended second place by five hundredths ahead of Grigori Wowtschinski from Ukraine.
Bronze for Linn Kazmaier, Walter fourth
Linn Kazmaier, who had already won silver in the biathlon sprint and over the long distance in cross-country skiing, now secured the bronze medal for the visually impaired women with guide Florian Baumann. Carina Edlinger from Austria (with guide Lorenz Josef Lampl) sprinted to victory 6.8 seconds ahead of Oksana Schischkowa (with guide Andri Marchenko). Kazmaier was 15.6 seconds behind Edlinger.
The 18-year-old sensational biathlon winner Leonie Maria Walter with guide Pirmin Strecker was not able to attack the medal ranks in the final and came fourth. Johanna Recktenwald with guide Valentin Haag had previously reached the semi-finals without any problems, but she couldn’t get past Walter and Edlinger there.
15th Paralympic gold for legend McKeever
Brian McKeever (with guide Russell Kennedy) was once again unbeatable among the visually impaired men. The legend from Canada was eight hundredths ahead of the American Jake Adicoff (with guide Sam Wood) at the finish of the sprint final. Zebastian Modin (with guide Emil Joensson Haag) ran 18.3 seconds behind to bronze.
For McKeever it is already the 15th Paralympic gold medal. The games in Beijing are the sixth and last of the now 42-year-old. He is one win away from catching up with Gerd Schönfelder’s record 16 golds, which the German para alpine skier won between 1992 and 2010.
Anja Wicker not in the final
In the women’s sitting class, biathlon bronze medalist Anja Wicker finished sixth in her run in the semifinals. “With the conditions, there was nothing more possible for me”said the 30-year-old from Stuttgart: “The arms were also a bit heavy from Tuesday. That’s not a good combination.”
Oksana Masters later missed her title defense by 1.7 seconds. The US-American finished with silver between the Chinese Hongqiong Yang (gold) and Panpan Li (bronze).
Ehlers: “Last night I thought I’d stop running here”
The oldest German participant, Alexander Ehler, who was 52 years old, had just made it into the semi-finals in Marco Maier’s starting class, but there he had to give up as fifth of his race.
“Last night I thought I wouldn’t run here anymore”said Ehler, who only recovered from a corona infection shortly before the games: “My body is still reacting to the infection. I often can’t breathe in the evening.” In the season on Sunday (March 13th, 2022) he definitely wants to start: “And then the goal is a medal. It doesn’t matter which one.”
Messinger retires prematurely
Nico Messinger, who had hoped for a medal in the visually impaired class with guide Robin Wunderle, was the only starter in Team D who had already been eliminated in the qualification, 35 hundredths were missing to reach the semi-finals.