Canada's Wilkie earns silver in women's middle distance cross-country at Beijing Games

Canada's Natalie Wilkie secured her third medal of the Beijing Paralympics, winning silver in the women's standing 10-kilometre cross-country event on Saturday in China.

The Salmon Arm, B.C., native completed the race with a time of 41 minutes 45.3 seconds — 27.3 seconds behind winner Oleksandra Kononova of Ukraine, and 1.8 seconds ahead of bronze medallist Iryna Bui, also of Ukraine.

Wilkie, who has already earned two gold medals earlier in the Games, reached her latest podium despite not having the cleanest of races.

"That was probably one of the toughest races I've ever been in, so I am really proud to come out with a silver medal," Wilkie said.

"I actually also had a crash coming into the last downhill into the finish chute, so I was really quite surprised that I was still on the podium."

WATCH | Wilkie collects silver in cross-country event:

Having held a medal position for much of the second half of the race, the 21-year-old Wilkie stumbled and fell coming off a turn as she neared the final stretch.

Quickly making it back up to her feet, Wilkie willed her way to the finish, moving herself up from the bronze position to silver.

"I had a similar crash in Pyeongchang where I won the gold," she said. "I lost a 20-second lead, but just managed to edge out second place. So I just told myself, 'Maybe you'll have a repeat of Pyeongchang, you can still get the podium, just ski as hard as you can into the finish.'"

"The whole last time my coaches were screaming at me, 'Bui is one second behind you,' and so I knew I had to really give it my all on the last couple of hundred metres of the course."

The podium finish makes it six career medals (three gold, two silver, one bronze) for her. Wilkie had won three medals, one of each colour, at Pyeongchang 2018 as the youngest of the Canadian cohort at those Games.

Fellow Canadian Brittany Hudak placed seventh (43:16.3), while Emily Young, of Kelowna, B.C., finished 11th.

Cameron falls just shy of podium

Collin Cameron, of Bracebridge, Ont., was just a few seconds short of a third medal at the Beijing Paralympics.

The 33-year-old (31:47.8) finished in fourth, as Italy's Giuseppe Romele (31:42.5) edged him out by 5.3 seconds to claim bronze in the men's sitting 10km cross-country event.

China's Mao Zhongwu won gold, while fellow countryman Zheng Peng grabbed silver.

Derek Zaplotinsky, of Smoky Lake, Alta., finished 15th, while Pemberton, B.C., native Ethan Hess placed 19th.

Cameron has two bronze medals to his name from earlier in these Games, while also having claimed three at Pyeongchang 2018.

On the women's side, Canada's Christina Picton finished eighth in the women's sitting 7.5km event. Her time of 28:55.6 was just over four minutes behind gold medal winner Yang Hongqiong of China.

Lyne-Marie Bilodeau, of Sherbrooke, Que., placed 13th.

Arendz misses middle distance cross-country podium

Canada's Mark Arendz fell short of a fourth medal at the Beijing Paralympics.

The Hartsville, P.E.I., native placed seventh in the men's middle-distance standing event with a time of 36:23.5, well behind the pace set by gold medallist Wang Chenyang of China.

He remains at 11 career Paralympic medals after securing three in biathlon and three more in cross-country at PyeongChang 2018. However, he's been shut out of the latter in Beijing.

France's Benjamin Daviet secured silver at 33:09.1, while China's Cai Jiayun rounded out the podium at 33:18.

Arendz, 32, is an option to race in one of the team relays in the final day of competition on Sunday.

WATCH | While You Were Sleeping: Canada earns spot in Para hockey final, sees success on the slops and ice:

Canadians compete in women's Para alpine slalom

Michaela Gosselin, of Collingwood, Ont., finished fourth in the women's Para alpine standing slalom event.

The 21-year-old Paralympic rookie set a combined time of 1:46.87 to finish 6.37 shy of a podium finish.

Fellow Canadian Alana Ramsay of Calgary also competed in the event but didn't finish her first run. Mollie Jepsen of West Vancouver, B.C., was originally scheduled to race the standing slalom also, but did not start.

Toronto's Katie Combaluzier had the seventh-best time in the women's Para alpine sitting slalom event with a combined time of 2:16.38 in her two runs.

China claims wheelchair curling gold on home ice

A day after defeating Canada 9-5 in the semifinals, China repeated as Paralympic champion in wheelchair curling with a 8-3 win over Sweden in Beijing.

After going down 2-1 after four ends, China put up a four-point fifth end to swiftly turn the tide of the game.

WATCH | China repeats as Paralympic champion with win over Sweden:

Although Sweden was able to answer back, scoring one in the sixth, China added three more points in the following end to make it 8-3. With only one end remaining, Sweden was unable to mount a comeback and settled for silver.

China opened the round robin losing to Canada and Sweden in back-to-back games. Since then, they had won 10 in a row, including the playoffs, to win it all on home ice.

Canada won bronze with a 8-3 win over Slovakia on Friday and were presented with their medals following the gold-medal game.