April 04, 2011 (Khanty Mansiysk, RUS) – Canada’s Brian McKeever remained perfect after battling through challenging conditions to win the men’s visually impaired distance race at the IPC Cross-Country Skiing World Championships in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia on Monday.

With changing conditions challenging the best wax technicians, McKeever, of Canmore, Alta., and his new guide in childhood friend Erik Carleton, powered through the five centimetres of new snow and challenging winds to win the men’s 20-kilometre classic-ski race with a time of 53 minutes, 26.7 seconds.

“That was  a hard race today,” said the 31-year-old McKeever. “We were behind after the second lap, but I wasn’t too worried because I felt like I still had something left in the tank and our skis were running well.”

McKeever and Carleton cranked up the tempo in the third of four laps where he bettered the Russian team by 30 seconds to take the lead, and never looked back. Russia’s Nikolay Polukhin and Andrey Tokarev won the silver for the second-straight day with a time of 54:10.0. Russia’s Alexei Toropov and Sergey Maksimov locked up third spot at 58:42.2.

“The wax techs did a great job on the skis keeping us in the hunt for the medals today,” said McKeever. Erik skied really strong, keeping me out of the winds for aslong as possible which allowed me to have the energy for the final two laps.”

Jody Barber, of Smithers, B.C., had another solid finish in the women’s standing 15-kilometre classic-ski race. Barber, who has won five World Cup medals throughout her career, clocked a time of 57:24.4. Oleksandra Kononova, of the Ukraine, won the women’s standing division after clocking-in at 50:43.1.

Mark Arendz, of Springton, P.E.I., who finished second overall in the men’s standing biathlon IPC World Cup this year, finished 10th in the men’s 20-kilometre classic-ski standing race. The 21-year-old, who was fourth in the opening pursuit race at the IPC World Championships, clocked a time of 1:01:33.1.

The men’s standing category was won by Rusia’s Kirill Mikhaylov with a time of 53:53.0.

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