The 12th Winter Paralympics have come to an end in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Here are a pick of the highlights from 10 days of action, featuring athletes from 49 countries.
Records broken all around
It’s traditional for every Games to be hailed as “the best ever” in the celebratory speeches at the closing ceremony, but Pyeongchang truly did set a number of new records for the Winter Paralympics. The number of tickets sold exceeded those sold at Sochi, and were the most ever, with the audience for the Winter Paralympics tripling since the 2006 Turin edition.
Brian McKeever set a record by wining his 13th Paralympic gold in his fifth appearance at the Games. He’s now the most decorated Canadian Paralympian of all time, and the most successful Paralympian cross-country skier of all-time. Henrieta Farkasova, competing in the visually impaired alpine skiing, was the most decorated athlete – with four golds and a silver to take home to Slovakia.
Country debuts and first gold medals
As well as a larger audience, the Pyeongchang Games featured more athletes taking part from more countries than ever before. A record 20 different nations earned at least one gold medal, and 26 out of the 49 countries taking part won at least one medal, a higher percentage than at any Paralympics since Lillehammer in 1994.
Georgia, North Korea and Tajikistan all took part in the Winter Paralympics for the first time. China, who host the next edition, won gold at the Games for the very first time, as did Kazakhstan.
Records set for Paralympics GB
The British Paralympic team will return home on Monday boasting of a successful Games, having hit their medal target of between six and 12 medals. The seven medals won was one more than in Sochi.
All of the medals were down to work of two Paralympians and their guides. Menna Fitzpatrick and Millie Knight won medals across a range of alpine skiing disciplines, with Fitzpatrick and her guide Jen Kehoe winning Britain’s gold medal on the final morning of the Games.
Fitzpatrick said she wanted to celebrate with a “proper cup of English tea”. By taking four medals in total, the 19 year old became the most decorated British Winter Paralympian of all-time.
The British alpine para-skiiers received a large amount of funding in the run-up to Pyeongchang – £2.7m. “We had so much funding and support after Kelly Gallagher and Charlotte Evans won their gold [in Sochi] so I only hope we will create the same after ours,” said Fitzpatrick.
The Paralympics GB chef de mission, Penny Briscoe, said: “We came into these Games with clear potential on snow and ice. I’m proud of every one of the 17 athletes in this team. Even away from the medals, there have been some stunning performances and personal bests.”
The Neutral Paralympic Athletes
One country that didn’t take part – officially – was Russia. The International Paralympic Committee had suspended the Russian Paralympic Committee as an anti-doping measure, but in January announced that Russian athletes meeting strict criteria could apply for slots in five events, and compete as Neutral Paralympic Athletes. Thirty competitors were able to take advantage of this, and they propelled the NPA team to second place in the overall medals table.
Three athletes in particular shone, with Ekaterina Rumyantseva taking three golds and two silvers in biathlon and cross-country skiing. In the same disciplines compatriot Mikhalina Lysova won two golds, three silver and a bronze, and Anna Milenina took home two golds and three silvers.
The Canada – USA ice hockey rivalry
The two North American powerhouses were kept apart at the group stages, and both cruised to the final. The USA conceded only one goal en route to the gold medal match, Canada conceded none. Remarkably, given their track records in the sport, it was the first time they had met each other in a Paralympics gold medal game.
The Canadians were just 37 seconds away from reclaiming the gold medal they had last won in 2006 in Turin. But Declan Farmer had other ideas. He tied the match up at 1-1, and then scored again in sudden-death overtime to give the US their third consecutive para ice hockey gold. The gold helped the USA top the medal table for the first time since 1992.
Cancer survivors dominate the snowboarding
In January Bibian Mentel-Spee underwent surgery for a cancerous tumour in her neck. By March the Dutch Paralympian was winning gold medals in South Korea. Since having the lower part of one leg amputated Mentel-Spee has survived multiple cancer surgeries and radiotherapy to emerge triumphant in snowboarding. She took gold in both the snowboard cross and the banked slalom.
Brenna Huckaby was another bone cancer survivor on the podium in the snowboarding. She took the snowboard cross and banked slalom golds in the SB-LL1, having, prior to the Games, become the first amputee Paralympian to appear in the annual Sports Illustrated swimwear issue.
Chernoby victim wins gold for the USA
Oksana Masters finally won gold at her third Paralympics, to add to a bronze earned in the rowing in London in 2012, and a bronze and silver in cross-country skiiing earned at Sochi. Masters was adopted from a Ukrainian orphange after suffering birth defects thought to be caused by radiation from the Chernobyl disaster. She dedicated the gold medal to her mother, and was given the honour of carrying the flag for the USA in the closing ceremony.
An extra bronze is required
Some critics have cited small numbers of competitors in some sports and large winning margins as evidence that the Winter Paralympics are not always functional as competitive sports. That was emphatically not the case in the men’s 1.5km standing cross-country skiing. Even a photo-finish couldn’t split Canada’s Mark Arendz and Finland’s Ilkka Tuomisto in third place, and so they were each awarded a bronze medal, leading to the rare sight of a medal and victory ceremony featuring four athletes on the podium.
Securing the future of the Paralympics
The closing ceremony saw the formal handover of the Paralympic flag from Pyeongchang to the 2022 host city, Beijing. The Chinese capital will become the first city to have hosted both the summer and winter Paralympics.
And the future of the Paralympics is looking assured after an agreement signed with the IOC which ensures the two organisations will continue to cooperate up until at least 2032. It means that the IOC will continue to insist that successful Olympic bid cities will also host the Paralympics in the same year at the same venues, and gives financial stability to the IPC for the next 14 years.
“There can be no doubts that the IPC and the Paralympic movement would not be where it is today without the support and co-operation with the IOC” said the IPC president, Andrew Parsons. “Both organisations share a passion that sport can change lives and that sport can change the world. Working together will further the impact both of ours work has on society.”
