Minnesota athletes earn two silver medals at Paralympics in Beijing
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A pair of athletes from Minnesota earned silver medals Monday at the Winter Paralympics in Beijing.
In her Paralympics debut, cross-country skier Sydney Peterson of Lake Elmo claimed silver in the women's 15-kilometer race. And St. Cloud's Mike Schultz took the silver in the men's snowboard cross — adding to the gold and silver medals he won four years ago.
Schultz spoke with NBC about his performance, and about his work designing specialized prosthetics for other athletes.
"They're all just pushing the bar so high and I'm just — I'm pumped I can keep up with them and I'm I'm even more pumped that, you know, I've created the equipment that is helping us to progress the sport," he said. "To race alongside of all these guys and still, you know, finish on the podium with a silver. Gold is awesome but silver is still awesome, too. I'm so pumped and proud."
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Peterson was a late addition to the U.S. Paralympic team, after winning three medals at the world championships earlier this winter.
"I didn’t really expect to ever be here. It’s all happened really fast. It feels kind of surreal to be here," Peterson said in an account of the race on the Team USA website.
"It was definitely a very hard race and physically exhausting," she said of Monday's race.
Elsewhere at the Paralympics, the U.S. wheelchair curling team — including Oyuna Uranchimeg of Burnsville — is now 2-3 in round-robin play, after a win over Norway on Monday.
