PyeongChang 2018: Day 8 preview

South Korea will go for two bronze medals on the eighth day of competition (17 March) at the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, when they face Italy in Para ice hockey and Canada in wheelchair curling. Alpine skiing and cross-country champions will also be decided.

Alpine skiing

The final men´s medal event will be the slalom at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre.

The vision impaired will be highly-competitive, with NPA athlete and defending slalom Paralympic champion Valerii Redkozubov facing Canada’s Sochi 2014 gold medallist Mac Marcoux and Italy’s world champion Giacomo Bertagnolli.

There are many gold medal contenders in the sitting category such as Norway’s Jesper Pedersen, France’s Frederic Francois and Japan’s defending champion Takeshi Suzuki.

NPA athlete and Paralympic champion Alexey Bugaev is still fresh from winning the slalom World Cup title and will be the leading candidate in the men’s standing.

Cross-country skiing

Middle distance races across both men and women’s events will be held. Standing and vision impaired categories will race in the morning session, and sitting categories will follow in the afternoon.

Canada’s Brian McKeever (men’s vision impaired), France’s Benjamin Daviet (men’s standing) and Ukraine’s Maksym Yarovyi (men’s sitting) all boast golds from the 2017 World Championships in Finsterau, Germany. World champions from the women’s side include Ukraine’s Oksana Shyshkova (vision impaired) and the USA’s Oksana Masters (sitting).

But other athletes are not to be underestimated, coming in with momentum from the latest World Cup season.

Austria’s Carina Edlinger made a statement in Finsterau when she took the middle distance bronze in the vision impaired category, and secured the 2017-18 cross-country crystal globe.

In the men’s equivalent, Sweden’s Zebastian Modin won the event at the World Cup Finals to go with the season’s overall title.

Norway’s World Cup winner Birgit Skarstein did likewise in the women’s sitting in Vuokatti, Finland.

Para ice hockey

South Korea and Italy return to the ice for the Paralympic bronze medal match, where they will try to find redemption after losing the semi-finals. The puck will drop at the Gangneung Hockey Centre at 12:00 KST.

Wheelchair curling

All three medals will be decided on this day, with the bronze medal game between Canada and hosts South Korea set for 9:35 KST at the Gangneung Curling Centre, followed by the gold medal game at 14:35 with China facing Norway.

Every competition as well as the Closing Ceremony can be watched live right here on the International Paralympic Committee’s website. Highlights of each day’s action will also be made available.