Paralympics: Woolstencroft sweeps; Victor wins combined

Canadian skier Lauren Woolstencroft put the finishing touches on a perfect run at the Vancouver Paralympic Games today (March 20) by winning her fifth gold medal in the women’s standing super combined event. American Stephani Victor also lived up to here name today taking the women’s sit-ski gold medal in the super combined in Whistler, B.C. to close the Vancouver Paralympic Games in style.

All three categories of alpine skiers took on super combined races today made up of one super G run and one slalom run.

With a more than 12-second advantage in today’s combined race Woolstencroft, who was born without legs below the knee and without her left arm below the elbow, showed the world what perfect looked like and grabbed her fifth gold medal in as many events at these Games. The accomplishment make her the most decorated female athlete from any country at a single Winter Paralympic Games. Teammate Karolina Wisieska took the women’s standing bronze (her third of these Games) behind France’s Solene Jambaque with the silver.

Woolstencroft’s efforts were part of a record 13-medal haul of the host nation, beating it’s previous record of 12 reached at both the Nagano and Salt Lake Games. 

“I never though I would actually win the five medals. The biggest challenge here was to ski your best day after day,” said the 28-year-old who works as an electrical engineer. “I am mentally fried right now, today my only focus was the race and I am pretty mentally tired. I had great confidence coming in and I was super prepared. I knew I had the potential but you can never know what is going to happen.”

Victor, the silver medalist in this week’s giant slalom, earned her fist gold of these Games and her second career Paralympic win with a combined time of 2:40.71. Teammate Alana Nichols (gold medalist in the GS and downhill) joined her on the podium with the bronze medal. Austria’s Claudia Loesch finished second more than three seconds behind Victor.

“Today was absolutely amazing, I had the fastest time in both runs and skied with all my heart,” Victor said. “Marcel did an amazing job with the ski preparation for the Super G, it was a sheet of ice and I attacked right out of the start. For the second run, the slalom, I was the very last racer to come down. It was awesome.”

Another American, visually impaired skier Danelle Umstead, together with her husband and guide Rob, took the women’s bronze (their first team Paralympic medal) medal behind Slovakia’s Henrieta Farkasova with the gold and Canadian Viviane Forest with the silver.

“I was very stoked,” said Danelle Umstead. “I was very nervous going into it. I just really put my trust in my husband because I had a stress attack at the top. I was stressing up at the top, just because of the pressure because I don’t finish slaloms very often. It was really nice to finally finish a slalom and actually get third when I did.”

“That’s what our team’s about,” said U.S. adaptive coach Ray Watkins. “Yesterday wasn’t the best. We talked about it last night. We’ve worked too hard to not finish the deal. Today they finished the deal. We had some real good, strong skiing by everybody. That’s what our country’s about, fighting right to the end and never giving up.”

Slovakian Jakub Krako won the men’s visually impaired race with a two-second lead on Italian silver medalist Gianmaria Dal Maistro. Miroslav Haraus of Slovakia earned the bronze while Canadian Chris Williamson just missed the podium in fourth place.

German powerhouse Gerd Schonfelder won the tight men’s standing event by a narrow two tenths of a second ahead of Frenchman Vincent Gauthier-Manuel with the silver medal. Australian Cameron Rahles-Rahbula rounded out the podium in third. Monte Meire was the only American finisher in 14th place.

Another German, Martin Braxenthaler, led the men sit-ski racers with a combined time of 2:10.16. Austrians Jurgen Egle and Philipp Bonadimann were on either ends of the podium in second and third, respectively. Chris Devlin-Young led the American men in seventh ahead of teammate Heath Calhoun in 10th.

Today’s races concluded the alpine skiing events at the Vancouver Paralympic Games. The closing ceremony will be held at Whistler tomorrow.

Click here for complete results.  

THIS STORY IS BEING UPDATED