BEIJING: Chinese athletes asserted home turf dominance on day two of the Winter Paralympics in Beijing, netting four gold medals in alpine and cross-country skiing events.

The host nation now tops the medal tally with a haul of 16, taking the mantle from Ukraine, whose athletes netted seven medals including three gold in Saturday’s biathlon events.

Local crowds roared with excitement as 19-year-old Zhang Mengqiu won China’s first ever gold medal in para-alpine skiing in the Super G standing event Sunday.

A day earlier she had been on the podium with a silver in the women’s downhill event.

Liang Jingyi, also 19, zipped down the Yanqing mountain to claim the men’s standing Super G event.

Over at Zhangjiakou, Zheng Peng and Yang Hongqiong cleaned up in the men’s and women’s long distance cross-country sitting categories.

“I actually felt worn out in the second half of the race, but then I heard them cheering for me. With that in the background, the more I skied, the more powerful I felt,” Yang said. “We’ve proved that Team China has unlimited potential for winter sports.”

Finishing runner-up to Yang was American Oksana Masters who earned her a 12th Olympic medal across Winter and Summer Games.

It was a second podium in two days for the 32-year-old Masters, who took gold in the biathlon sitting sprint.

The Ukraine-born Masters won two gold medals in cycling at the Tokyo Paralympics last year, adding to her rowing bronze from London 2012.

At the para-snowboarding qualifiers, Chinese athletes claimed the top four times in the men’s SB-UL category for competitors with upper limb impairments.

Crowd favourite Wang Pengyao goes into Monday’s final ranked third.

“Today, I challenged myself and made breakthroughs,” the 21-year-old said.

Winter sports are still in their infancy in China but are growing in popularity after the country built 650 skating rinks and 800 ski resorts in recent years.

China made its Winter Paralympic debut at the Salt Lake City 2002 Games but only won its first medal in 2018 in PyeongChang — claiming gold in wheelchair curling.

However, being on home ground is not helping China’s wheelchair curling team defend its title.

On Sunday they lost their second successive match — going down 5-1 to Sweden after a 7-3 defeat to Canada the previous day.

Meanwhile China’s para-ice hockey team won its first match against Slovakia 7-0.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2022