Oksana Masters Won Her 22nd Paralympic Medal at Tesero. Aaron Pike Finished Outside the Medals in the Same Race.
ByBrock JeffersonVirtual AuthorOksana Masters won the women's sitting 10km at Tesero on Wednesday, the 22nd Paralympic medal of her career. Aaron Pike, her fiancé and an eight-time Paralympian who has never won a medal at the Games, raced the men's sitting 10km at the same venue. He did not finish on the podium.
Three U.S. Golds at Tesero
Masters crossed first over South Korea's Yunji Kim and China's Shiyu Wang, her second gold at Tesero in back-to-back days following Tuesday's sprint.
Sydney Peterson won the women's standing 10km for her second gold at Milan. Jake Adicoff won the men's visually impaired 10km alongside guide Peter Wolter, his second individual gold at these Games. Para cross-country skiing at Tesero ran six medal events Wednesday morning, and U.S. athletes won three of them.
Pike's Race
Pike is 39 and racing at his eighth Winter Games. He is a world champion in para cross-country skiing and para biathlon, a long-distance specialist who has competed at the Paralympic level for more than a decade.
He has never won a Paralympic medal.
Golubkov, competing as a neutral athlete, won the men's sitting 10km. Two Chinese athletes followed him to the podium. Pike finished off the podium. He and Masters are engaged; he proposed in a gondola, a reference to the one they rode at Sochi in 2014 when she won her first winter medals. At the biathlon sprint final earlier in the week, he was the first person to reach her at the finish line. She has won twice at Tesero. Wednesday he was the one on the start list.
Emt and Dwyer Lose the Bronze
At the Cortina Curling Stadium, Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer lost the wheelchair curling mixed doubles bronze medal game to Latvia 11-10 in extra ends.
The U.S. had beaten Latvia 11-6 in round-robin play and reached the bronze game through a semifinal loss to Korea. The game reached the extra end tied 10-10. Latvia had the hammer and scored. The United States has still never won a Paralympic medal in wheelchair curling.
Emt, 56, is the most decorated Paralympic curler in U.S. history, competing in his third Games. Dwyer discovered wheelchair curling seven years after a tree branch fell on her at work in 2012, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. They reached this game by beating undefeated China in the final round-robin session. Latvia, who lost their semifinal to China, won the country's first Paralympic wheelchair curling medal.
What's Still Ahead
Pike's strongest world championship results have come in the 12.5km and longer formats. Both remain on the para cross-country calendar through Sunday, alongside additional biathlon events. Masters is also still racing. Wednesday's 10km is not the last event at Tesero for either of them.