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Brian McKeever overcomes fall to win his second gold of these Paralympics in 1km sprint
One fall usually ends your hopes of a medal, but not if you're Brian McKeever. The Canadian cross-country skier crashed 200 metres into the one-kilometre final of the men's visually impaired sprint Wednesday when a Russian competitor stepped on his pole, but managed to get back up again, caught up to the pack over the remaining four-fifths of the race with the help of guide Graham Nishikawa, and wound up finishing first, earning his second gold in Sochi and his 12th Paralympic medal overall. Here's video of his incredible race:
That's just amazing to watch, especially in such a short race where many likely would have been knocked out of contention completely by a fall. McKeever told The Canadian Press that he never considered giving up after the fall, though:
"It wouldn't be right for me to tell you what I said in my head, but once the cuss words were out, the only thing you can do is get back up and race," said McKeever. "I thought we were clear, but that is normal and it happens in sprinting when you are all fighting and tight. Everyone is going flat out. It is intense and everyone is at their limit. We are just fortunate it happened in the first 200 metres and not at the end so we had time to catch up."
How remarkable is McKeever's comeback? Well, after 200 metres, the other skiers had presumably reached their top speed. He had to not only get up and start accelerating from zero again, but had to do so quickly, and had to reach a substantially higher top speed than his competitors in order to make up the distance between them in just 800 metres. That's incredible from a physics standpoint, and it illustrates just how dominant of a racer McKeever can be.
Nishikawa should get credit for the way he was able to guide McKeever through that tight pack, too. As Stephanie Dixon noted Tuesday, he's only filled in thanks to primary guide Erik Carleton's illness. McKeever's two guides switched off midway through Monday's 20km classic race, helping provide an energy boost that propelled him to gold, and Nishikawa's specialization in the sprint distances made him a perfect pick for Wednesday's race. This was an impressive tandem showing. As McKeever told CP, Nishikawa's efforts were crucial to his win:
McKeever credited Nishikawa with getting him the gold.
"The snow was so heavy today," he said. "He basically towed me up that hill and ... and gave us a chance. It is not how we planned things, but that was a pretty awesome day."
This is just the latest triumph in McKeever's amazing career. The 34-year-old Calgary native now has 12 Paralympic medals to his credit across four Winter Games, including an incredible nine golds. He's conquered a remarkable number of disciplines, too, excelling in both freestyle and classic cross-country skiing and at every distance from one to 20 kilometres. He also became the first Canadian to be named to both Olympic and Paralympic teams in 2010, being chosen as an alternate in the able-bodied men's 50km, but wasn't selected to race. In Sochi, he's won gold in both of his events so far (accounting for all of Canada's golds to date), and he still has two more to come. If this race is any indication, he'll be very hard to beat, even if he gets knocked down.
