Winter Paralympics: Veronika and Elisabeth Aigner win skiing gold in Beijing

Austrian sisters Veronika and Elisabeth Aigner emulated brother Johannes by winning Winter Paralympic alpine skiing gold in Beijing.

Veronika, 19, who is guided by her elder sister, took gold in Friday's women's visually impaired giant slalom

Their younger sister Barbara, 16, who is a twin of Johannes, claimed bronze to spark more family celebrations.

Johannes already has two golds, a silver and a bronze from the men's visually impaired events.

The three sisters go again in Saturday's slalom while Johannes finishes his programme on Sunday.

The giant slalom was Veronika's first race of the season after she tore the cruciate ligament and meniscus in both knees in a training crash in January 2021.

She suffered a further setback when her and Elisabeth were also involved in a car accident last November which meant they were unable to compete at January's World Championships.

But they were flawless at the Yangqing National Skiing Centre with a time of one minute 52.54 seconds for their two runs — 7.31 seconds ahead of China's Zhu Daqing, who won her fourth medal from four events with Barbara, the world champion, a further 0.08secs back.

Also on the slopes, Japan's Momoka Muraoka won her third gold medal with victory in the women's seated giant slalom.

She trailed China's Liu Sitong by a second after the first run but put in a brilliant second run to win by over seven seconds.

Ukraine moved up to second in the medal table behind China thanks to three golds in the biathlon events — a third of the Games for Oksana Shyshkova (women's visually impaired) and a first gold for both Liudmyla Liashenko (women's standing) and Oleksandr Kazik (men's visually impaired) after their earlier silvers and bronzes.

All three athletes dedicated their wins