Team USA delivers going into third day of 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships

February 24, 2013

Going into the third scheduled day of competition at the IPC Alpine World Championships in La Molina, Spain yesterday, the United States para-alpine team has delivered with a gold medal won by Laurie Stephens in the women's sitting, a silver medal won by men's sit skier Stephen Lawler in the downhill, and bronze medal won by Laurie Stephens in the women's sitting. The United States finished two days of competition fifth overall in the medal count, tied with Russia.

Other Team USA performances in the downhill included a fourth place finish by visually impaired woman skier and guide Robert Umstead, a fifth place finish by  in the men's sitting group, an eighth place finish by Ralph Green in the men's standing group, an eighth place finish by women's standing skier Allison Jones, a ninth place finish by visually impaired Mark Bathum and guide Sean Ramsden, a tenth place finish by Tyler Walker in the men's sitting, and a thirteenth place finish by Heath Calhoun in the men's sitting.

In the Super-G event on Thursday, Jones finished fourth in the women's standing group, Devlin-Young finished fifth, Stephani Victor finished fourth in the women's sitting group, Umstead and Umstead finished fifth in their group, Bathum and Ramsden finished seventh in their group, Walker finished twelfth in his group, Green finished sixteenth in the men's standing, Jonathan Lujan finished nineteenth in the men's standing, Stephen Lawler finished twentieth in the men's sitting, Heath Calhoun finished twenty-third in men's sitting, and Andrew Earl Kurka finished twenty-fifth in the men's sitting group.

A few members of Team USA had difficulties, and were not able to start or finish their races. In the men's sitting downhill, Kurka did not finish. In the downhill and Super-G event, 2010 Winter Paralympics medalist did not start. -2 women's sit-skier Victor also did not start in the downhill event.

Visually-impaired skier Bathum chatted with his guide, Sean Ramsden, immediately following both his races. While he was unhappy with his downhill run, Bathum was happy with and had fun during his seventh place run in the Super-G event where he finished with a factored time of 1:13.51, only 3.02 seconds slower than the winning time set by Spanish skier.

United States skiers were scheduled to compete yesterday in the Slalom discipline but the competition was cancelled due to high winds. Several members of Team USA had a pizza party after the slalom cancellation. Friday's scheduled event had been rescheduled as a result of predicted snow and high winds during the day. No snow arrived until late in the afternoon, where there was limited accumulation. Some of the younger members of Team USA took advantage of the night off on Thursday to go bowling before a busy training day Friday.

In other United States Paralympic news, Sir, the President of the International Paralympic Committee, told a Wikinews reporter the country will have live television coverage of the in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When a member of Team USA competing in La Molina was asked if they heard confirmation of this, they were unable to confirm. They did highlight the lack of United States media coverage was frustrating for fans wanting to follow the Games in London. According to the skier, many people he knew could only follow the Games by searching for video on sites like.