These days, the Asian Cup of cross-country skiing among athletes with disabilities was held in Japan.
10 athletes, two of whom are representatives of Lviv Oblast, decided to compete for medals for Ukraine. Athletes master cross-country skiing and biathlon at the Lviv Regional Sports Center for People with Disabilities “Invasport”.
Pavlo Bal won three medals for Lviv Oblast at once. First, he became a bronze medalist at a distance of 5 km. And later he added two gold medals to this award — in a sprint race and at a distance of 10 km. The peculiarity of the sprint was that it was held as a mixed race — athletes from all participating countries and all classes ran 1 km 200 m together.
Pavlo Bal won the medal in the 10 km cross-country ski race on the last day of the competition, another representative of the Lviv Region, Vasyl Kravchuk, won the silver medal here.
Pavlo Bal comes from Mostyshchyna. He came to the “Invasport” center after a high limb amputation. Here he was offered several sports, but he chose cross-country skiing and biathlon. Trains under the guidance of Bohdan Dobryanskyi.
Vasyl Kravchuk is coached by Volodymyr Lyubizhanin. Vasyl has been involved in physical activity since childhood, but due to an accident, he ended up in a wheelchair and switched to sports for people with disabilities. Vasyl also masters biathlon at the Lviv Regional Sports Center for People with Disabilities “Invasport”.
In total, the Paralympic national team of Ukraine won 13 medals, of which 6 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze.