Melissa Perrine has finished sixth in the vision-impaired giant slalom at the Beijing Winter Paralympics, while Rae Anderson was 10th on debut in the standing classification.
Key points:
- Perrine and sighted guide Bobbi Kelly will contest the slalom event this weekend
- Rae Anderson became the seventh Australian to compete in both the Winter and Summer Paralympics
- Ben Tudhope was ninth in the banked slalom
Among other results on day seven, para-snowboard star Ben Tudhope — who won Australia’s only medal of the Games so far — finished ninth in the banked slalom.
Four-time Winter Paralympian Perrine and sighted guide Bobbi Kelly were sixth after a first run of 1 minute and 02.13 seconds, 8.05 seconds off leader Veronika Aigner and 4.09 seconds back from bronze.
But the Australian was unable to make up enough time on her second run to reach the podium.
Perrine and Kelly had to recover from respective back injuries and minimal competition and training opportunities over the past two years.
“I feel proud. We’ve had a tough season and we started off this season in some really bad shape, basically,” Perrine said.
“To fight to where we are now in a discipline that we’ve not done a lot of this year I couldn’t be happier, honestly.
Perrine claimed bronze in the slalom and super-combined event at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
She will look to close her Winter Paralympics career with a third career medal — and Australia’s first para-alpine skiing medal in Beijing — in the slalom on Saturday.
Debutant Rae Anderson meanwhile was thrilled to crack the top 10 amid cold conditions and poor air quality.
She became the seventh Australian to compete at both the Winter and Summer Paralympics.
Anderson contested the javelin and discus at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio.
“At the end of the day, that was the main goal, to become a dual Paralympian,” Anderson said.
“It wasn’t the worst finish either, looking at everyone coming down. Top 10 would be incredible.
“We are stoked with the outcome today and probably exceeded a lot of our expectations, from coaching and me included.”
Anderson will be back up on Saturday in the women’s standing slalom.
Tudhope has been Australia’s shining light at the Beijing Games, with his snowboard cross bronze the sole medal to date.
But the Australian co-captain struggled with the Zhangjiakou course on Friday and did not challenge for the podium.
“It’s been a really tough build-up, the preparation going in was definitely altered for us,” Tudhope said.
“You’ve got countries from overseas, in Europe and America, who can train all the Northern Hemisphere winter, so when we’ve been stuck in Australia for the last two years they’ve just been progressing and getting better and better.
“But for me, here, I know I put it all on the line and I’m really proud of my achievement here.”
AAP/ABC
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