Årsjö, Bauchet and Bertagnolli retain Paralympic Combined titles

Ebba Årsjö (SWE) ran away with the Women’s Combined Standing to claim her second gold in Cortina on Tuesday. The 25-year-old, whose family and partner arrived just in time to see her win Downhill gold on Saturday after a 24-hour road trip from northern Sweden, was more than two seconds clear after a magnificent Super-G run. And she was just as good in the Slalom as she retained her title by a seven seconds.

Aurélie Richard (FRA) held on to her second from the Super-G to claim her third silver of the Games, with Wenjing Zhu (CHN) taking bronze. Monday’s Super-G gold medalist Varvara Voronchikhina failed to finish the speed leg on this occasion, missing a gate after getting low on the line coming into Rumerlo.

“Yesterday was emotional and a really painful day for everyone in the team,” Årsjö said. “But we sat down together, talked about it and tried to be positive and reload for today. I had revenge in my mind. The skiing in my Super-G was super good today, I’m really proud of it. I’m not just winning because of Slalom because the Super-G run was super good.

“Tomorrow, I’m not going to train. Maybe spend some time with my family and suck up all their energy because it’s been two hard days.”

Årsjö also gave an update on teammate Aaron Lindström who suffered a heavy crash in Monday’s Men’s Super-G Standing. “He’s good, he’s happy. He’s in good spirits and handing out pins to the doctors. But, you know, really bad concussion, punctured lung, and something with the foot. He’s still saying he wants to do the Slalom but I don’t know!”

Arthur Bauchet rose from fifth at midway to successfully defend his Combined Standing crown, but profited from a late fall for Aleksei Bugaev (RUS). The leaders after the Super-G leg struggled on the technical side with the Frenchman going a second quicker than anyone else in the Slalom. He won by 1.2 seconds from Federico Pelizzari (ITA) with Thomas Grochar (AUT) taking bronze.

Speed double winner Robin Cuche had a DNF, collecting a gate before falling on his inside ski. Bugaev had to abandon his run with the double gold medalist still down on the course, before the Swiss eventually rose after treatment on his knee. The Russian was supremely quick on the rerun, taking the lead by one and a quarter seconds from Grochar, and had a third Paralympic Combined title in his grasp before coming to grief around 12 gates from home.

After a crash in Monday’s Super-G, Bauchet defied doctors’ advice to race and was rewarded with gold. “It wasn’t the Super-G I was hoping for but I knew in Slalom anything can happen and it’s my favorite discipline,” he said. “Obviously, I had some luck with Bugaev’s crash. Today, luck was on my side when yesterday it was not. Skiing is crazy.

“I think I had accepted that I would win silver, so when I saw on the screen that I am gold medalist it was such an emotion. After yesterday and a few hours in hospital, the surgeon said, ‘I don’t know if you can compete.’ I said, ‘No, no, I will compete.’ So now I have to have surgery in a few days after the Games to put a tendon back in place in my thumb. It’s nothing but I have to do it. It was quite difficult to find the good position so in the Super-G we taped the glove. I cut my glove where we strapped it and attached it to the pole. In the Slalom, it was OK. When I’m on the course I don’t feel pain, just emotion.”

Contrasting fortunes for Aigner siblings as Bertagnolli takes home win

Veronika Aigner (AUT) secured her second gold of the Games in the Combined Vision Impaired. With a lead of just over a second from the Super-G leg, Aigner and guide Lilly Sammer were superb in the Slalom as they completed the test more than two seconds quicker than the rest of the field.

Chiara Mazzel (ITA; guide Nicola Cotti Cottini) consolidated her second from the Super-G with Elina Stary (AUT; Stefan Winter) staying third to claim her first Winter Paralympic medal.

“We were focused for the Super-G,” said Aigner. “I didn’t feel so fast, but Lilly said in the finish area we had a green time. I was like, ‘What?’ For the Slalom, I wasn’t nervous and I don’t know why but we were so fast! I hate Slalom so much but we made it.”

Giacomo Bertagnolli delighted the home fans by retaining his Combined Vision Impaired title. He and guide Andrea Ravelli led by just two-tenths after the Super-G and, despite the two getting quite separated early in the Slalom run, managed to win gold.

An inspired Slalom leg saw Neil Simpson (GBR: Rob Poth) move up from fourth to silver, with Johannes Aigner (AUT; Nico Haberl) having to settle for bronze after his speed double.

Bertagnolli said, “After bronze and silver, the gold medal was so important and I couldn’t miss such an opportunity. We just tried to do our best. Of course, we made some mistakes but if you’re focused and you have a very ambitious goal in your mind and you want to achieve it, then it’s easy.”

More gold for Pascual Seco and Kampschreur

Audrey Pascual Seco (ESP) made it two golds in the space of 24 hours, just holding onto the lead she established in the Super-G. Some sharp turns saw her lead Anna-Lena Forster (GER) by 2.82 seconds. Downhill champion Forster did make it down, but left herself slightly too much to do on the Slalom leg as she ended up 0.46 behind.

Sitong Liu (CHN) was third for her third bronze of the Games ahead of teammate Wenjing Zhang who was quickest in the Slalom leg.

Despite her rapid Super-G time, Pascual was surprised at the advantage she created. “I thought it wasn’t a clean run,” she revealed. “I had the feeling that I just survived, but I saw the screen and I was like, ‘Oh’. The conditions were a bit difficult, more challenging than yesterday, and the rest of the girls had problems. I was very very happy.

“I was nervous as the last races I didn’t have a good feeling with the Slalom so I just wanted to cross the finish line, go with the flow, not think about the result because that’s very stressful for me. I just wanted to finish and that’s it. I’m very very tired. This is a very long day. One run is OK but two runs is like very heavy and I just want to take a day off, sleep and talk with my friends and family.”

Like Pascual, Jeroen Kampschreur (NED) added Combined gold to Super-G success the day before on the back of a strong speed section. He was almost a second clear of teammate Niels de Langen after the Super-G with Renè De Silvestro (ITA) in third.

De Silvestro’s excellent Slalom run moved him ahead of de Langen, and he almost took gold with Kampschreur managing to prevail by just 0.11. After two fourth-place finishes, De Silvestro had his first medal of his home Games with Downhill winner Jesper Pedersen (NOR) down in fourth.

Kampschreur said having de Langen on the podium with him made this triumph “way more special”. He added, “With the Dutch army behind us, the cheering was so loud and it was such a close race. Our category is so crazy and Niels and I didn’t have the best Slalom runs. Renè had an amazing Slalom run so I’m glad I had the buffer from the Super-G because that was perfect for me. It was such a good run.

“The speed wasn’t that high on the Slalom run so I really had to work to get that acceleration. It’s just not my thing, but the conditions were good. I’m glad they salted it because I didn’t have big ditches or holes anywhere like in the Downhill, for example. After a lot of Slalom athletes, in the World Cup, there are normally more holes so they did quite well.

The men have a longer break than the women ahead of the technical events, and Kampschreur knows he will have to improve to be competitive in the Slalom proper. “I had the sixth fastest run time so there’s work to do,” he said. “We’re going to analyze but we have two days off. I’m going go to the sauna again and we’re going to have some chill time. Tonight we have a celebration with the family so that’s really nice. I finally get to hug them again.”

The Women’s Giant Slalom is next on the schedule on Thursday with the Men racing the following day.