Paralympic Recap – Day Four

The United States leads the medal count into day four of the Winter Games

 

Online Exclusive posted Wednesday, March 14, 2018 – 10:45am

Team USA Sled Hockey was shutout… in the second period. But they scored six in the first and two in the third to make it 8-0. Declan Farmer recorded his 2nd Hat Trick and had 2 assists. Brody Roybal added two goals along with Joshua Misiewicz, who also had two goals.

Steve “Money” Cash was worth every penny recording just four saves against the South Korean team whose offensive plan was to shut down the U.S. attack by burning time off the clock.

Sean Halsted competes in the men’s sitting biathlon 12.5-kilometer at the Paralympic Winter Games. (Photo by Ken King).

“They wanted to slow the game down, we kind of expected something like that. They wanted to put the trap on us, but there was some kind of zone trap and we got some pucks thrown at us and it was an end zone type of trap. We got some pucks through and that is what we needed to do,” Said Team USA’s Head Coach Guy Gosselin.

Team USA looks to take down Italy in the semi-finals Thursday, March 15, 2018 at Noon Korean Time.

The Super combined event is a marriage of one Super G run and two Slalom runs combines times. At the end of the Super G it was Team USA’s athletes turn to compete. Even though, the Americans didn’t reach the podium this time, l they produced nine top-10 finishes.

Laurie Stephens came in fifth place in the Women’s sitting category and recorded her third-straight top-five finished. In the men’s sitting event Josh Elliott finished in fifth and Andrew Kurka in sixth place.

In the standing divisions, Stephanie Jallen (Harding, PA) was eighth in the women’s and Thomas Walsh was ninth in the men’s going into the final Slalom run. In the Visually Impaired category, it was Henrieta Farkasova who clinched the gold, and the Canadian Mollie Jepsen who took gold in the Standing event. Stephanie Jallen came in 4th position and unfortunately Ally Kunkel did not finish the race. Andrew Kurka missed the podium this time and came in 6th while his countryman Josh Elliott ranked 7th in the men’s sitting category. Overall Team USA put up a good fight, but circumstances and conditions just weren’t on their side.

The U.S. Team had eight athletes entered in the most technical of the Nordic events, the Biathlon, which is a combination of cross country skiing and rifle target shooting. Today’s event was the middle-distance Biathlon race, the second of three Biathlons to be held during the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games. Women skied the 10km, a 2km loop five times and shooting pellet rifles at five targets four times.

Declan Farmer, who scored a hat trick vs. South Korea wins a face-off. (Photo by Danny Chin).

The men raced on a bit longer course 12.5km five times and also shot five targets four time. For each target missed the competitors skied a 120-meter penalty loop.

Team USA’s Gold medalist in the short distance discipline of Biathlon: Kendall Gretsch finished 4th overall and her teammate Oksana Master withdrew from the race with an injury. First time Paralympian, Ruslan Reiter finished the 12.5km in 11th out of field of 14. Dan Cnossen and Andy Soule, both sit skiers finished the day on the podium with Silver and Bronze, respectively. Cnossen shot a clean race, never missing a target, which wasn’t the case of Soule who, despite missing two shots, still took home a medal.

The next Nordic event, a Sprint Classic race, will be held on March 14th, 2018.

Story published with permission of the Wheelchair Sports Federation. ©2018 All rights reserved.

 

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