Press releases

MINSK, 11 March (BelTA) - Belarus’ Vasily Shapteboi (class B2) has claimed a second medal of the Sochi Paralympics. On 11 March he won bronze in the men’s 12.5km biathlon race for visually impaired, BelTA has learnt.

Vasily Shapteboi clocked 31:59. He shot clear only in the third stage missing four times overall. However, he managed to clinch bronze thanks to good speed. He finished 55 seconds behind Ukraine’s Vitaliy Lukyanenko (B3; 31:04, clear shooting). Russia’s Nikolai Polukhin (B2, +10.3 seconds, one miss) won silver. It is noteworthy that these very athletes won the same medals in the men’s 7.5km race on the first day of the Paralympic Games.

Team Belarus have three bronze medals at the moment. Two of them were bagged by Vasily Shapteboi (biathlon) and the other one was claimed by veteran Yadviga Skorobogataya (women’s 15km classic).

Despite this success Belarus dropped to 15th place in the overall Paralympics ranking. Russia tops the medal tally with 34 medals (11, 14, 9). Germany, with only four medals (all gold) is second in the ranking and Ukraine is in third with 11 medals (3, 3, 5).