Disabled World Cup: Cook seventh despite incident; Bascio also seventh

Disabled World Cup: Cook seventh despite incident; Bascio also seventh{mosimage}LILLEHAMMER, Norway — World Cup champion Steve Cook (LW-4; Salt Lake City) was laid low Friday when another skier knocked him over during a downhill section in a disabled cross-country World Cup race over short distances on the Olympic trails.

Cook finished seventh in the 28-man standup field with an adjusted time of 14:07.3 behind in the 5 km classic technique race won by Kjartan Haugen (LW-4) of Norway, who has been his primary competitor for the last two seasons on the World Cup. Haugen finished in 13:27.8.

“That was pretty frustrating for ‘Cookie’ because he would have been on the podium, but he’s fine,” said head coach Jon Kreamelmeyer, “and he knows he’s seriously in the hunt. Classic will be the technique for two of our races at Paralympics this season, and this is a good yardstick on where he is.â€?

In other results, Monica Bascio (LW-11; Evergreen, Colo.) was seventh and Candace Cable (WL-11; Truckee, Calif.) eighth in the women’s sit-skier category. Belorussian Ljudmila Valchok (LW-10) won the 2.5 km race in an adjusted time of 9:47.9 with Bascio timed in 10:37.5 and Cable 11:19.9.

Kelly Underkofler (LW-8; St. Paul, Minn.) was eighth in the women’s standup class, two minutes behind Russian Anna Burmistrova (LW-8). Bob Balk (LW-11; Long Beach, Calif.) and Chris Klebl (LW-11; Heber City, Utah) tied for 13th in the men’s sit-ski category; Russian Sergey Shilov (LW-10) won in 17:01.6 with Balk and Klebl finishing in an adjusted 18:19.8.

– Courtesy USSA News Bureau