Russia's Zaripov grabs gold number two in Vancouver

RUSSIA'S Irek Zaripov won the men's 15km cross-country (sitting) event at the Winter Paralympics in Vancouver - his second gold in 24 hours.

RELIEF: Irek Zaripov collapses to the snow after putting in a major effort to win his second Paralympic gold medal in two days (Getty Images)

Zaripov covered the course at Whistler in 41.01.10 while team-mate Roman Petushkov was just over ten seconds behind and Italy's Enzo Masiello completed the podium.

And he admitted the feeling, after winning the 2.4km biathlon pursuit, had been his motivation and with three more events to come, more medals could follow.

"I showed my baby the medal on Skype," he said.

"He was so happy he was bouncing around the room. When I went to bed it was hard to fall asleep because I had so many emotions from the wonderful day.

"I'm very happy. After that first medal it was much easier for me The distance is quite hard but I counted on my strength to adjust for the whole distance. On the last lap I was seven seconds behind the opponent but I finished great."

Lludmila Vauchok, of Belarus, won the women's 10km (sitting) seeing off the challenge of Canada's Colette Bourgonje in a close finish while Olena Iurkovska, of the Ukraine, was third.