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Strong slalom puts Perrine in silver spot

Australian vision-impaired skier Melissa Perrine has set herself up for a medal after the first component of the women's super-combined in Sochi.

Australian skier Melissa Perrine has recovered from a day of devastation at the Winter Paralympics to set herself up in the silver medal position.

Perrine and her guide Andrew Bor navigated heavy fog and rain on Tuesday in the women's vision impaired super-combined to finish the slalom component in 1:00.55.

Super-combined tallies the times of one run each in the fast and furious super-G and the slower, more technical slalom.

The Super-G had been scheduled to run first on Tuesday morning, but was postponed until Wednesday due to poor visibility.

"Skiing in slalom in the rain is just not fun," Perrine said afterwards.

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"I can't actually control where my eyes focus. Sometimes they were focussing on Andrew, sometimes on the droplets on my goggles, sometimes in some unknown direction.

"It's really just pot luck whether I can see. That's when Andy become really important to whether I can make it down a course or not."

Perrine's run puts her 1.87 seconds behind Russian leader Aleksandra Frantceva, setting goal for the 26-year-old to work towards in her preferred Super-G run.

She'll attempt that race two days after she botched a turn to throw away a gold medal-winning split in the standalone Super-G on Monday.

"I don't want to feel like that again, so I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure I put down a respectable run," she said.

Bor praised Perrine for pulling herself together and putting in a courageous performance in trying conditions.

"Let me tell you I can see quite a bit more than Mel," he said.

"It's foggy up there, so the definition's not great.

"Slalom's tough enough as it is, but when the visibility's like that it's even tougher."

Slovakia's Henrieta Farkasova, who won the women's downhill, was disqualified after missing the final gate.

Super-G gold medallist, Brit Kelly Gallagher also didn't finish.

Mitchell Gourley and Toby Kane will attempt their slalom run in the men's standing super-combined on Tuesday afternoon.


2 min read

Published

Updated

Source: AAP


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