Beijing 2022 Paralympic Downhill champion Corey Peters (Wānaka) has secured a second-place finish at the opening FIS Para Alpine Downhill World Cup in Italy overnight. This marks Peters’ first Downhill race since his phenomenal gold medal performance at the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Winter Games.
Peters explained, “I think my key takeaway from today is that even though I haven't raced Downhill for nearly four years, the skills and the ability are still there, so it's really helped the self-belief and self-confidence as we move forward into the rest of the speed events throughout the season, and onto Milano Cortina 2026.”
With snow falling throughout the race, the snow surface was a little softer than the training day yesterday and visibility was hampered, adding an extra challenge when skiing at almost 100km/hr.
The men’s sitting field was competitive, with the top five athletes all finishing within 0.71 seconds of each other. Peters was just five-hundredths of a second behind today's winner Jesper Pederson of Norway, with Jeroen Kampschreur of the Netherlands rounding out the podium in third.
Snow Sports NZ Lead Alpine Para Coach Daniel Bogue explained; “Today’s race was definitely a full commitment course. Corey had a good training yesterday and we were able to look at some video and take some confidence out of being right in the mix. Today he used his experience and just let it go and skied some really clean lines.”
Corey attributed a solid Southern Hemisphere training block as part of his success today, saying; “Preparation over the last six months has certainly contributed to this result, specifically the training trips we do to Chile. They gave me a huge amount of confidence, training alongside the Dutch and Japanese who are at the top of the game, pushing myself alongside them really cemented my self-belief coming off my shoulder injury.”
The FIS Para Alpine Downhill World Cup in Santa Caterina is a double-header, and Peters will be racing again in the early hours of Thursday morning NZT.
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