Ukraine won 7 awards on the first day of 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing

Ukrainian athletes won seven medals on the first day of the Winter Paralympic Games in Beijing

This was announced by the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine and the Olympic team, Rubryka reports.

Currently, Ukraine is leading in the medal standings.

As noted, all the awards Paralympians won in various classes of biathlon sprints.

Thus, in the men's sprint among visually impaired athletes, Ukrainians took the entire podium:

• "Gold" – Vitalii Lukianenko (class B3, guide Babar),
• "Silver" – Oleksandr Kazik (class B1, guide Kucheriavyi),
• "Bronze" – Dmytro Suiarko (class B2, guide Nikonovych).

Hryhorii Vovchynskyi (class LW8) and Oksana Shyshkova (class B2, guide Marchenko) also became champions of the 2022 Paralympics.

Taras Rad (class LW12) and Liudmila Liashenko (class LW8) won silver medals.

In terms of the number of gold medals, Ukraine ranks first after the first day of competition.

Ukrainians were the only Ukrainians to win three gold medals at once. In terms of the number of awards, Ukraine is second only to China (8 medals).

The Paralympic Games in Beijing officially started on March 4. They will last until March 13. During this time, 78 sets of awards in six sports are drawn.

Ukraine is represented at the Paralympics in only two sports: para biathlon and skiing. 20 Ukrainian para-athletes will take part in the competition.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus do not take part in this year's competitions. They were expelled from the Paralympics due to a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.