Norway's Pedersen wins third gold at Beijing Winter Paralympics

YANQING, Beijing, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Jesper Pedersen of Norway grabbed his third gold medal of the Beijing Paralympic Winter Games in convincing fashion, winning the men's giant slalom sitting on Thursday.

The 22-year-old racer, who has already won super-G and super combined gold at Beijing 2022, clocked a two-run time of one minute and 54.20 seconds, 3.30 seconds ahead of Italy's Rene de Silvestro. Chinese skier Liang Zilu took bronze in 2:00.92.

"I am kind of the most consistent skier on the circuit," Pedersen said of his form at Beijing 2022. "We've just trained a lot. We probably have the most days on skis on the circuit. And in these conditions as well, we have a glacier on Norway we are on the whole summer."

"We've been through it all, we did a lot of training going into this season and we knew what to expect. Today we showed we've done a lot of good things," Pedersen added.

Johannes Aigner of Austria won the men's giant slalom vision-impaired, taking his second gold at Beijing 2022.

The 16-year-old finished in 1:49.34 over two runs, 1.68 seconds faster than Giacomo Bertagnolli of Italy. Miroslav Haraus of Slovakia took bronze in 1:54.92.

Aigner said he had targeted gold in the giant slalom after having won gold in the downhill, silver in the super combined, and bronze in the super-G.

"Because we already have gold, silver, and bronze, it's just gold that we wanted [today]. It's unbelievable for us that we made it," Aigner said.

Santeri Kiiveri of Finland took the men's giant slalom standing title with a two-run time of 1:55.40.

Charles Walsh of the United States, who clocked the fastest time in the first leg, failed to hold his lead in the second, finishing 0.04 seconds behind Kiiveri.

French racer Arthur Bauchet, who won the downhill and super combined golds, took bronze in 1:55.89.