Oestersund ski stadium offered perfect conditions during the Para Nordic Skiing World Championships  last week. We saw many interesting competitions as well as many happy winners in standing, sitting and vision impaired.

On Saturday 21 January, the competitions kicked off with a 7.5km sprint competition that had two shootings. Men’s sitting competition was won by Canadian Collin Cameron ahead of Aaron Pike (USA) and Yerbol Khamitov (KAZ). In the standing class the champion was Marco Maier (GER) ahead of Mark Arendz (CAN) and Serhii Romaniuk (UKR). Oleksandr Kazik from Ukraine won the vision impaired, Zebastian Modin (SWE) took second place and bronze went to German Nico Messinger.

Para Oestersund 2The women’s sitting class sprint winner was Kendall Gretsch (USA), second place went to Anja Wicker (GER) ahead of Andrea Eskau (GER). In standing, the double win went to Canada as Natalie Wilkie won and Brittany Hudak was second. Bodhana Konashuk (URK) took the third place. In vision impaired it was Germany who took home a triple win lead by Leonie Maria Walter, second place to Linn Kazmaier and third Johanna Recktenwald.

10 km race included 3 shootings: the Men’s sitting class was won by Ukrainian Taras Rad followed by Aaron Pike (USA) and Eui Hyun Shin (KOR). On Friday 27th 12,5km competition took place with 13 athletes. Aaron Pike took home the win followed by Scott Meenagh (GBR) and Yerbol Khamitov (KAZ).

In Women’s sitting the American Kendall Gretsch took  thetriple win as she won both the 10 and 12.5 kilometer race. In the 10km Germans Anja Wicker and Andrea Eskau took silver and bronze. Eskau polished her bronze to silver in the 12.5km competition and third place went to Christina Picton (CAN).

Para In the men’s vision impaired 10km competition the win went to Oleksandr Kazik (UKR), second place to Nico Messinger (GER) and third to Zebastian Modin (SWE). In the 12.5km Kazik (guide: Serhii Kucheriavyi) took home the third win of the week, second place was Anthony Chalencon (FRA) (guide: Florian Michelon) and third Maksyn Murashkovskyi (UKR) (guide: Borys Babar).

Women’s vision impaired 10km champion was Leonie Maria Walter from Germany. Second place went to the Ukrainian Oksana Shyshkova and third to Austrian Carina Edlinger. In 12.5km race Germans took over the podium as the triple victory went to Linn Kazmaier (guide: Florian Baumann), Johanna Recktenwald (guide: Latz Perer Klausmann) and Leonie Maria Walter (guide: Pirmin Strecker).

The new men’s standing 10km and 12.5km World Champion is Mark Arendz (CAN). Silver medal in both competitions also went to the same biathlete as Grygorii Vovchynskyi from Ukraine celebrated it. In the 10km competition bronze went to Serhii Romaniuk (UKR) and in 12.5km to Benjamin Daviet (FRA).

Liudmyla Liashenko (UKR) skied to gold in the women’s standing 10km. The second place went also to Ukrainian Bohdana Konashuk and third was Brittany Hudak. In the 12.5km Natalie Wilkie (CAN) took home the win, Konashuk was second and Liashenko third.

You can find all the results here.