It was a busy first day of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games for the Scottish contingent of athletes on the ParalympicsGB team topped off with bronze medal success for Brett Wild.
Para Alpine Skiing
In what was a remarkable start to the games, ParalympicsGB were to get on the medal board early as Millie Knight was successfully guided by Scot Brett Wild in the Women’s Downhill VI event.
Finishing in a time of 1:23.20 at the Yanqing National Alpine Centre, the pair secured the first medal for ParalympicsGB in the games and were visibly delighted at their fantastic achievement.
Millie Knight said, “We genuinely did not think a medal would be achievable especially with the standard at the moment – I didn’t think I was good enough to be up there. At the start I was just thinking find the seconds, do anything you can do to go faster, it doesn’t matter if you’re scared, keep going”
Day One. Medal One.🥉
Watch @knight_millie and @BrettWild’s vision impaired Downhill run that got us off to a remarkable start in Beijing overnight.
📺 @C4Paralympics #WinterParalympics pic.twitter.com/FLy5x04J9p
— ParalympicsGB (@ParalympicsGB) March 5, 2022
In the Men’s Downhill VI, brothers Neil and Andrew Simpson (guide) saw their first action of the games and placed 7th.
Para Nordic Skiing
Scots Callum Deboys and Scott Meehan got their Paralympic Games off to a start, finishing 17th and 9th respectively in the Men’s Sprint Sitting Biathlon.
Wheelchair Curling
Elsewhere the wheelchair curlers were on the rink as the round-robin competition got underway, as the ParalympicsGB team of 5 Scots were to narrowly lose out 7-5 to a strong Norway, before bouncing back to defeat the USA 10-6 to get off the mark in the games.
Skip Hugh Nibloe said: ‘United States and Norway are good teams so to come out today won one and lost one is probably fair and it was so important to get that first W.
“It was so important especially for Meggan and David being their first Paralympics to get that belief that we can win games and we know we are good enough. Now it’s just important we go out and back it and keep that winning feeling bottled.’