Press Releases

GOLD FOR WOOLSTENCROFT AND FOREST IN DOWNHILL

19 March 2010
GOLD FOR WOOLSTENCROFT AND FOREST IN DOWNHILL
 
WHISTLER, BC (March 18, 2010) – Lauren Woolstencroft (North Vancouver, BC) and Viviane Forest (Edmonton, AB) made it a double gold medal day for Canada today at the alpine venue of the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games.
 
Woolstencroft won in the ladies standing category for her third gold of these Paralympic Games. For Forest, who has about five per cent vision, and guide Lindsay Debou (Whistler, BC) today’s result in the ladies visually impaired category completes a rare triple – a gold to go along with a silver and bronze they have already won in 2010.
 
“My goal was to win at least one gold,” said Forest who finished today in 1:27.51. “I’m even more pleased because we got it for the downhill. It was such a difficult course here in Whistler so I’m very happy.”
 
Adding to the challenge was the fact there was only one downhill training run held due to challenging weather conditions.
 
The Canadian alpine ski team has won a total of eight medals so far, which half of them are gold.
Woolstencroft, now golden in the downhill, slalom and giant slalom, said the distance between downhill training and race day did present a challenge.
 
“It’s been eight days since the downhill training so we needed to dust off that memory of the course,” she said. “We have been skiing technical events in slushier conditions which is a lot slower. So that was definitely a different feeling going out there with all that speed.”
 
“It affects people in different ways,” said Woolstencroft of the pressure she feels to be successful. “I just try to take that pressure to my advantage. Everyone was cheering for us because we are Canadians and we are competing for the national team. So it is great to come down and hear all those people cheering for you, regardless of what you do.”
 
Karolina Wisniewska (Vancouver, BC) placed fifth with Andrea Dziewior (Nanaimo BC) ninth despite a crashing right at the finish of the race.  
 
Josh Dueck (Vernon, BC) took fifth place in the men’s sitting division while Sam Danniels unfortunately (Whistler, BC) did not finish. Matt Hallat (Whistler, BC) was the top Canadian in 11th in the men’s standing category with Morgan Perrin (Whistler BC) 15th while Jeff Dickson (Sudbury, ON) did not complete his run. Christopher Williamson (Markham, ON) and his guide Nick Brush (Panorama, BC) did not finish the men’s visually impaired competition.
 
The schedule for Friday calls to have a super-G for all the categories.
 
INFORMATION:
Sophie Pilon
Media Attaché, Para-Alpine
Canadian Paralympic Committee
C: 403-815-7340

Back

Events

Subscribe to this RSS feed

Previous