TESERO, ITALY — Team USA collected three medals across the Para cross-country sprint events Tuesday at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium, with Oksana Masters capturing gold in the women’s sitting final while Sydney Peterson and Jake Adicoff added silver and gold in their respective races.

Sprint competition at the Milano Cortina Paralympics began with qualification rounds in the morning before progressing through semifinals and finals in the afternoon. The races were held on short, single-lap sprint courses designed to reward acceleration and positioning.

Sunny skies and firm snow greeted the athletes in Val di Fiemme. The sitting sprint course covered 1,024 meters with only five meters of total climb, making it one of the flatter courses of the Paralympic Games.

WOMEN’S SITTING SPRINT

Masters entered the day as one of the favorites in the women’s sitting sprint, an event where she had previously won silver at the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

She posted the fastest qualifying time and advanced comfortably through the semifinal round, winning her heat ahead of Germany’s Anja Wicker and China’s Wang Shiyu.

The final required Masters to chase after the staggered start created by the classification factoring system. Early in the race she sat in fourth place before gradually closing the gap on the leaders.

As the group approached the final climb into the stadium, Masters accelerated past Korea’s Yunji Kim and carried the momentum through the final stretch, gliding across the finish line to secure the gold medal.

“I feel absolutely on top of the world right now, just in complete shock, and so, so happy,” Masters said afterward.

The win also carried personal significance after narrowly missing the sprint title in Beijing.

“It was just such a relief and redemption from Beijing,” she said. “It was the one that got away.”

Teammate Nicole Zaino advanced to the semifinal round after qualifying earlier in the day but finished fourth in her heat and did not move on to the final.

Erin Martin finished 14th in the qualification round.

MEN’S SITTING SPRINT

The men’s sitting sprint field included 37 competitors, with only 12 advancing from the qualification round into the semifinals.

Aaron Pike moved through qualification and into the semifinal round, where he needed to stay close to the leaders to secure a place in the six-athlete final. Pike remained in contention early but faded in the closing portion of the race and finished fifth in his heat.

Joshua Sweeney and Daniel Cnossen finished 14th and 15th in qualification, while Michael Kneeland placed 32nd.

China’s Zixu Liu won the men’s sitting final in 2:28.9, edging Brazil’s Cristian Westemaier Ribera and Kazakhstan’s Yerbol Khamitov.

WOMEN’S STANDING SPRINT

In the women’s standing sprint, Peterson advanced through qualification and secured a place in the semifinal round.

During her semifinal heat, Peterson used a running motion to power up the final climb before entering the stadium, finishing second and advancing to the final.

Teammate Danielle Aravich also advanced through the semifinal round with a third-place finish in her heat.

In the final, Peterson moved into second place behind Norway’s Vilde Nilsen and maintained that position through the final stretch, finishing 4.2 seconds behind the winner to earn the silver medal.

“I’m pretty happy. It was a really fun day, a really fun race and I’m pretty stoked about how the result turned out,” Peterson said.

Aravich remained in the mix early in the final but faded late and finished sixth.

MEN’S STANDING SPRINT

Jack Berry was the lone U.S. athlete in the men’s standing sprint.

Berry advanced through qualification and reached the semifinal round, where tight racing and technical turns on the course proved challenging. He finished fifth in his semifinal heat and did not advance to the final.

Belarus’ Raman Svirydzenka won the final ahead of Germany’s Sebastian Marburger and France’s Benjamin Daviet.

MEN’S VISUALLY IMPAIRED SPRINT

Jake Adicoff, skiing with guide Peter Wolter, delivered Team USA’s second gold medal of the day in the men’s visually impaired sprint.

Adicoff qualified comfortably and advanced through the semifinal round after taking the lead early in the race despite a brief stumble on one of the course climbs.

In the four-team final, Adicoff and Wolter made up the staggered start quickly and entered the stadium in the lead. They held off China’s Shuang Yu over the final meters to secure victory by 1.5 seconds.

“I feel great. It was a tough day, but we did our best,” Adicoff said.

“It was a long-standing goal for this individual gold medal. I went for it so many times in the past.”

Teammate Max Nelson finished 14th in the qualification round and did not advance to the semifinals.

With two gold medals and one silver from the sprint races, Team USA opened the cross-country program in Tesero with multiple podium performances. The Nordic schedule continues later this week with interval-start distance races, where athletes will shift from head-to-head sprint tactics to longer efforts that test pacing, climbing efficiency and endurance across multiple laps of the Val di Fiemme course.