Laurie Stephens wins giant slalom bronze at world cup finals

Laurie Stephens (Wenham, Massachusetts) returned to the podium for Team USA on Thursday after netting her second bronze medal in giant slalom races at the IPC Alpine Skiing World Cup Finals in Aspen.

Stephens finished in third with a time of 2:00.64 in the women’s sitting competition, less than a tenth of a second from second place Anna-Lena Forster, Germany’s two-time Paralympic medalist, (2:00.58) and more than two-tenths behind winner and world medalist Momoka Muraoka of Japan (2:00.40).

"I’ve been working on technique so I was just trying to get that dialed in and I thought I made progress with that in the first run," Stephens said. "The second run was not so much but I’m happy to be on the podium. Sections were definitely better than yesterday and I’ll keep focusing on my technique so hopefully it will pay off in the long run."

Two-time Paralympian Danelle Umstead (Park City, Utah) and guide Rob Umstead (Park City, Utah) narrowly missed the podium in the women’s visually impaired race with a fourth place finish, clocking in at 2:04.44. The British skiers repeated their success from Wednesday, sweeping the category in the same podium order. Menna Fitzpatrick and guide Jennifer Kehoe captured gold (1:58.84) followed by Millie Knight and guide Mike Abromowitz (1:59.60) with silver. Kelly Gallagher and guide Gary Smith (2:02.71) rounded out the podium with bronze.

In the men’s race, defending world champion Valerii Redkozubov of Russia took the top spot with guide Evgeny Geroev after finishing runner-up yesterday. Their time of 1:44.11 placed them ahead of Canada’s Paralympic champion Mac Marcoux and guide BJ Marcoux (1:44.26) and Spain’s world championship silver medalist Jon Santacana-Maiztegui and guide Miguel Galindo Garces (1:48.38).

Russia also took gold in the men’s standing race as world champion and Paralympic silver medalist Aleksey Bugaev crossed the finish line in 1:43.30. He was just over a second faster than Australia’s Mitchell Gourley (1:44.38) and Austria’s Christoph Bernhard Schneider (1:44.96). Team USA’s Thomas Walsh (Vail, Colorado), who won gold on the first day of competition, was less than two-tenths of a second away from bronze with a time of 1:45.14.

Marie Bochet extended her dominance in the women’s standing class, as she remained undefeated in world cup competition after another giant slalom win with a time of 1:49.51. She was ten seconds faster than her next closest competitor, Alana Ramsay of Canada, who finished with silver (2:00.05) for the second straight day. Laura Valeanu of Romania reached the podium for the first time in Aspen with bronze (2:00.34).

The men’s sitting competition featured defending world champion Georg Kreiter of Germany taking his place on the top of the podium (1:45.15) ahead of Austrian skier Roman Rabl (1:45.84) and Taiki Morii of Japan (1:46.22).

Technical events will conclude tomorrow with slalom and the awarding of overall world titles for both disciplines at Aspen Mountain. Follow U.S. Paralympics on Facebook and Twitter for updates with full results available on the IPC website.

For more information, please contact Brianna Tammaro, U.S. Paralympics, at 719-237-2179 or Brianna.Tammaro@usoc.org.

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