Sochi: Russia Go Tops

With four days of competition remaining, Russia took a dominant lead on the medal table, winning 16 golds to post its best performance at a Paralympic Winter Games.

Russia has already surpassed its previous best Paralympic Winter Games performance of 13 gold medals at Torino 2006, with the prospect of adding to that tally over the next four days.

By Wednesday, Germany is second on the medal tally with six golds and Ukraine third with three golds and 14 medals in total.

The most dominant performance by a home nation was in Innsbruck in 1984 when Austria topped the table with 34 gold medals. However, there were only 21 countries competing there compared with 45 in Sochi.

At Vancouver 2010, Russia finished second on the medal table with 12 golds, all from biathlon and cross-country skiing. Its success in Nordic events has continued in Sochi, with eight biathlon gold and seven in cross-country, and one gold in Apline slalom.

Russia's Sochi team is more than double the size of the 32- strong squad that traveled to Vancouver. Of Russia's 69 athletes competing in Sochi, 13 are Paralympic veterans.

As President Vladimir Putin said, the Paralympics is a logic continuation of the Olympics. Its Paralympic success is also a continuation of the country's excellent showing at the Sochi Games.

Russia had a slow start to those Games and saw its men's ice hockey team finish outside the medals but its athletes rallied in the second week to finish on top of the table with 13 golds.

Russia's men's sledge hockey team has a good shot at a Paralympic medal having reached the final four alongside U.S., Canada and Norway.