TOKYO - On the third day of road racing from Fuji International Speedway, Team USA landed atop the podium twice.
A third-place finish in the mixed team relay H1-5 and a bronze medal performance from Jill Walsh (Syracuse, N.Y.) in the WT1-2 gave the Americans their seventh and eighth medals of the Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.
With relay performances from Ryan Pinney (Phoenix), Alicia Dana (Putney, Vt.) and Alfredo de los Santos (Hopewell Junction, N.Y.), the trio clocked in at 53:11 in a close battle that saw France (53:03) place second and Italy (52:32) take the gold.
Jill Walsh won a bronze medal in the WT1-2 road race after posting a time of 1:05:48 while competing in heavy rain and fog that descended on the circuit. The 58-year-old cyclist collected her third career Paralympic medal which features a pair of silver medals from Rio 2016 (road race T2, road time trial T2). Walsh also placed fourth in the women's T1-2 time trial on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at the Tokyo Games.
Pinney and Santos both earned their first career Paralympic medals and Dana, a three-time Paralympian, collected her third career medal and second in Tokyo. Will Groulx (Portland, Ore.) was originally slated to race the mixed relay but had to pull out due to a crash on the first day of competition.
Monica Sereda (St. Petersburg, Fla.) rode to a fourth-place finish (1:07:32) in WT1-2 and Aaron Keith (Woodinville, Wash.) finished the MC1 in 22nd place (2:26:00)
Road cycling concludes Friday from Fuji International Speedway.
-U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee-