Polina Rozhkova will become the second Latvian athlete in Beijing to participate in both the Winter and Summer Paralympic Games.
Photo: LPK
Ilmārs Stūriška, “Latvijas Avīze”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
The flagship of Latvia will be Polina Rožkova and Ojārs Briedis at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Beijing.
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The Beijing Paralympic Games will take place from March 4 to 13, and Latvia will be represented by a team of eight people.
Polina Rožkova is the team skip or captain, she is a seven-time Latvian champion in wheelchair curling, she is also involved in fencing, where she was a world leader, competing in the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. A week ago, it was 13 years since the woman was in a wheelchair – at that time she was snowboarding on the mountain, wearing a somersault and…
Ojārs Briedis is a member of the board of the Latvian Curling Association, responsible for legal issues.
The Latvian wheelchair team participated in the world championship in Beijing in October, winning four games in 11 games and winning eighth place in 12 team competitions.
Latvia will be represented at the Winter Paralympic Games for the second time and the first since 1994, when Aldis Šūpulnieks started cross-country skiing in Lillehammer, ranking 13th in the 20-kilometer distance. He also participated in the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Summer Paralympic Games.
Around 600 athletes from 50 countries will take part in the Beijing Paralympic Games, competing in six sports – downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, para-hockey and wheel curling.
More than five years ago, it was said that Parabobsley would also make its debut in Beijing, but this has not happened, although the World Cups in this sport have been held since 2015, and several Latvians have started with excellent results in the past. Artūrs Klots is a two-time world champion, Alvils Brants has won the European Championship.
At the moment, the results are not so good, but Latvians are still in circulation and last week Klots was 12th in the European Championship in St. Moritz, Brant – 14. This season, eight stages of the World Cup took place, in which 21 athletes from 13 countries participated. Before the covid pandemic, the number of participants was even higher.
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