[MEDAL ALERT] Brian McKeever equals Paralympic men’s gold medal record with win in middle distance race

BEIJING – Brian McKeever equalled a Paralympic Winter Games record for victories by a male athlete with his 16^th career win and 20^th medal overall winning the men’s visually impaired 12.5 kilometre cross country race on Friday.

The 42-year-old from Canmore, competing at his sixth and last Games, clocked 33 minutes and 06.6 seconds for the win. Zebastian Modin of Sweden took the silver in 33:59.1 and Dmytro Suiarko of Ukraine was third at 34:08.1

McKeever ties Gerd Schönfelder’s men’s record of 16 Paralympic Winter Games gold medals. The German Para alpine skier also competed at six Games between 1992 and 2010. McKeever could break the mark in the mixed relay on Sunday.

As was the case in the sprint, McKeever was never beaten in the middle-distance cross-country race in his Paralympic career.