This Tuesday (10), Brazil won the first medal in its history at the Paralympic Winter Games, with Cristia Ribera, 23, taking silver in the cross-country skiing sitting sprint event.
Current world champion and one of the favorites in the dispute, the Brazilian led the qualifiers and also most of the final race, but ended up overtaken in the last meters of the 1.024 km course by the Chinese Liu Zixu, who clocked 2min28s9, compared to Ribera’s 2min29s6. Kazakh Yerbol Khamitov completed the podium, with 2min29s9.
“I wanted to win the gold medal. It was much more of the Chinese’s merit. I’m very happy, it’s a dream come true. The next goal, of course, is gold”, said the Brazilian skier, who still competes in the 10 km races, on Wednesday (11); in the team relay, on Saturday (14); and in the 20 km, on Sunday (15).
“We’ve been competing for so many years, we’ve been on the circuit for eight years. Being able to be on the podium, representing Brazil, I’m very proud,” added the Olympic medalist, excited.
“I’m very happy, proud. It’s a long-term work, almost 12 years of work. And today we finally arrived, we broke that barrier. It’s an unprecedented medal for Latin America. Congratulations to everyone, we did a fantastic job”, said Anders Pettersson, president of CBDN (Brazilian Snow Sports Confederation).
Born in Cerejeiras, in Rondônia, and raised in Jundiaí, in the interior of São Paulo, Cristian Ribera is already in his third Paralympic participation.
In his debut, in PyeongChang-2018, in South Korea, when he was just 15 years old, Ribera took sixth place in the 15 km cross-country skiing event, Brazil’s best result in the history of the Winter Games until Milan-Cortina.
Since then, he has established himself as one of the main names in the sport. He was the first Brazilian to win the Globo de Cristal in Paralympic cross-country skiing, becoming overall champion of the 2024/2025 season.
At the beginning of the season, he maintained his positive momentum on the snow slopes and won two gold medals in the 1 km and 10 km events at the World Cup stage in Finsterau, Germany, in January.
Brother of Eduarda Ribera, who competed in the Winter Games in cross-country skiing, the skier from Rondônia was born with arthrogryposis, a congenital disease that affects the joints located at the extremities of the body. Throughout his life, he underwent 21 leg surgeries.
Also this Tuesday, Aline Rocha from Paraná reached fifth place in the cross-country skiing sitting sprint test in the women’s category, with a time of 3min21s, renewing the best result for women in Brazil at the Paralympic Winter Games. The best result was from Aline herself, with a seventh place in the 15 km of cross-country skiing in Beijing-2022.
