PyeongChang 2018: Cross-country flash quotes day 9
Athletes' reaction to the mixed and open relay races on final day 18 Mar 2018Anthony Chalencon (FRA) - gold medallist - Open Relay
"It is a real satisfaction, a great victory with my team. I'm very proud to be in this team. It was a very great race for us and I'm very happy. My team is very united and we are strong."
"I have not really realised that we won and I think I will have more emotions when I will get the gold medal on the podium."
Thomas Clarion (FRA) - gold medallist - Open Relay
"It's wonderful for our team. Our group is really strong. We are close all together, so it is really nice to win all together."
"I was a bit stressed on the first lap by Benjamin (Daviet). I saw that the other teams were not so far from him. But Anthony did a really strong (race) in the second stage, it was a really big race, and after when I started, I said, 'Push on what you have'."
"We are friends. We do a lot of training camps together. We are like a family. We are cooking and everything. We are together 150 days of the year. We are a really small team, so it's important to have good relations."
Brian McKeever (CAN) - bronze medallist - Open Relay
"We didn't think we were going to win any medal today but you have to ski clean, you have to follow the rules and unfortunately today the Ukrainians left early. In a way it's a victory, it's a medal.
"We knew we were probably not going to win against (gold medallists) France and (silver medallists) Norway, maybe not even against Ukraine. On paper, they are a stronger team than we are, but we figured we fight until the end and see what happens."
"It's an incredibly successful Games for the team. Our Canadian programme is strong, we've got lots of first-time medallists and that's what I think is the most exciting thing for us too. These whole Games have been about great team work and team spirit.
"Collin (7.5km sitting biathlon bronze medallist) started us off with a medal in his first race in his first Games on the first day. You can't start better than that, and somehow that brought us up and carried us through all the way until the end."
Collin Cameron (CAN) - bronze medallist - Open Relay
"I'm so exhausted. I was just trying to have a really steady, solid first lap and then just find whatever is left after this last week-and-a-half and put it into another 2.5km. I put everything into it. I've got nothing else left."
"It's awesome. It's definitely a once in a blue moon experience. We don't often get to do relay events, so I was really hoping coming into this to try and get into a relay team event. I'm on the team today and we got on the podium, so it was probably my favourite medal this week.
Yuliia Batenkova-Bauman (UKR) - gold medallist - Mixed Relay
"I can't believe in this happiness after all the suffering that I went through. I've been working towards this for so many years and I was not expecting it. It is such a great happiness for me. I am exploding on the inside because of this gold medal.
"Here I was not able to take a medal at all. I wasn't able to accomplish anything. I got sick and everything went wrong. I was always unlucky, and in the last day this miracle happened. I am madly happy. Finally I can get rid of this thought in my head because I am finally a champion at my fourth Paralympics. It's my 14th medal and it's gold.
"I asked God, 'If I can't bring a medal for myself, let me take this medal for Zlata, my golden child'. She deserves it. She is the best."
Chris Klebl (CAN) - silver medallist - Mixed Relay
"It went better than my last relay. My last one was in Sochi (2014 Paralympic Winter Games) and I crashed in the first 500 metres."
"I specifically wanted to go third so that there could be all the pressure. It worked well."
Natalie Wilkie (CAN) - silver medallist - Mixed Relay
"It's a big team effort. I lost a bit of time because I was skiing with all the sit-skiers, and they can double pole and I can't, so I caught most of them on the hills but we were still at least a minute and a half back and it was good to be with a team. We made up a lot of time."
"I got a full set now: bronze, silver, gold. It's awesome. I didn't think I would come home with any medals so this is awesome."
Andrea ESKAU (GER) - bronze medallist - Mixed Relay
"This time it was just for the boys [teammates Steffen Lehmker and Alexander Ehler, GER]. They have worked so much the whole year and I was so hopeful that we could get a medal here, because it (winning medals) is the greatest thing in the Paralympics. "You can never expect this, it's impossible, then you're a dreamer. My dream was to get another gold medal here but I even thought that this couldn't be happening here. It was crazy."
On what's next:
"World Cup in Para cycling. The preparations start next week. I'll have three days of rest, totally resting, going down, celebrating and laying down in bed, then I'll start training again."
Nils-Erik Ulset (NOR) - silver medallist - Open Relay
"It's so great to win medals together with this team. It's us who are training more or less every day at training camps, spring, summer, autumn, so it's nice to see everyone succeed and to get such a result that we're getting here today. Winning a medal is so great."