Beijing, China, March 11, 2022: Chinese Para cross-country skiers Zheng Peng and Yang Hongqiong completed a brace of gold medals each when they won the Sprint Sitting Cross-Country men’s and women’s finals respectively at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games on Thursday, March 10.
The end result in both events was a mirror image of the Long Distance Sitting finals with all three top positions in both the men’s and women’s races grabbed by the same athletes and in the same order.
Zheng completed his brace of gold medals at Beijing 2022 with another breathtaking performance at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre.
Zheng finished with an impressive time of two minutes 24.2 seconds. Compatriot Mao Zhongwu took the silver medal 2.5 seconds behind while Canada’s Collin Cameron came home third, 3.9 seconds behind to claim the bronze medal.
“This was a really tough and close race. I’m not sure about any tactics, but because all the fans outside have been cheering for us, the rhythm they’ve been giving us is really great,” said Zheng.
The women’s Sitting Sprint action too saw Yang carry on from where she had left off in the Long Distance Sitting final. Once again she kept US ace Oksana Masters at bay to clinch gold with a time of 3:18.2.
Masters took silver, 1.7 seconds behind, while China’s Li Panpan pocketed the bronze in 3:31.0.
Speaking on her back-to-back success against Masters, Yang said: “For sprint, winning or losing depends on even a few seconds. During the race, I didn’t care whether my opponents were catching up. No matter what sound I heard, no matter whether it was far or near, I kept my own pace.”
