Russia leads in the total medal count at the Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver. Russian sportsmen have won a record 38 medals, including 12 gold, 16 silver and 10 bronze. In the gold medal count Russians are one point behind Germany. The host country athletes are placed third.
Russia had no set plans for a total medal score before the Games. What the Russian athletes knew for certain was that they had to show as excellent a performance as at the previous Games in Turin. At the 2006 Paralympics Russia for the first time led in both the total and gold medal counts having grabbed 33 medals - 13 gold, 13 silver and 7 bronze.
This year Russia's Paralympians by far outsmarted its Olympic team. Not a day passed without the disabled sportsmen scoring more wins. A few times Russians took all three medals, and on Sunday, the Paralympics closing day, they grabbed a total of 8. In the one-kilometer sitting sprint race Russia took gold, silver and bronze. The Russians came so close that the gold winner, Sergei Shilov, could be determined only on the photo. Irek Zaripov, who came second, felt happy about his overall performance - he won four hold and one silver medal:
"Irek Zaripov is in high spirits and endlessly grateful to his coach he had been working with for four years. He is thanking his home country and each of his supporters. He is overfilled with emotion"
As he addressed the closing ceremony, the President of the International Paralympic Committee Philip Craven emphasized that the impressive performance demonstrated by the Russians resulted from years of persistent training and Russia's hefty investment in the Paralympic movement. During a ceremony watched by the thousands the Paralympic flag was handed over to the mayor of Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The President of the Sochi-2014 Organizing Committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, said Russia would do its utmost to succeed:
"Russia should do its best to see its athletes on the Olympic pedestal, he says. On our part, we'll do whatever we can to ensure good organization and coordination so that the whole country will unite in pursuing this highly ambitious project".
In their farewell word to the 10th Paralympic Games the organizers praised the athletes' ever-increasing professionalism and the remarkable courage each of them had demonstrated at the Games, inspiring millions of disable people with a belief that there can be no unattainable goals.
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