11.03 Day 3 at the Paralympics: Britain Ends Wait for Gold, 8th Win for McKeever

SOCHI, March 11 (R-Sport) – Monday at the Sochi Paralympics saw Britain win its first-ever gold medal at a Winter Games, while for Canadian skier Brian McKeever, victory was positively routine as he claimed his eighth gold.

Elsewhere, Canada’s curlers slipped for the first time and host nation Russia won gold and silver in a cross-country ski race featuring just four athletes.

Skier Kelly Gallagher triumphed in the women's visually impaired super G for Britain’s first win on snow at either the Winter Olympics or Winter Paralympics.

Gallagher, 28, from Northern Ireland, and her guide Caroline Powell finished the Rosa Khutor course in 1 minute 28.72 seconds, beating Alexandra Frantseva of Russia. Britain also took bronze as Jade Etherington finished third.

"I'm so delighted. We put a lot into this, we've trained for four seasons together and it was really, really tough so it's nice to have good result from the work we put in," Gallagher told R-Sport.

International Paralympic Committee president Sir Philip Craven was delighted with his fellow Briton's achievement.

"Wahey, come on," he said. "I'm not supposed to be biased as the president of the IPC, and I'm not of course, but I'm very, very happy."

At the Laura cross-country course, McKeever blazed to an eighth career gold medal in cross-country skiing at the Paralympics on Monday, winning the 20km classic standing event at a sun-bathed Sochi course.

McKeever, 34, took the lead from Russia's Stanislav Chokhlaev at the 12km mark and defended it throughout, crossing the line in 52 minutes, 37.1 seconds.

"I needed to save my energy for the second part of the race, especially since the Russians started so quickly. They were 15, 20 seconds ahead," McKeever said, adding that the slushy snow made things even harder. "It's insanely hard to ski in these conditions."

Chokhlaev took silver with bronze for Sweden’s Zebastian Modin.

Russia won its second and third cross-country gold medals of the Sochi Paralympics with victories for Rushan Minnegulov and Elena Remizova.

The women’s 12km visually impaired event attracted just four entries after other athletes were, according to Canadian skier Margarita Gorbounova, “too chicken” to face the warm temperatures.