Day two of the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games once again saw all 7 Scottish members of the ParalympicsGB team in action.
Alpine Skiing
Brett Wild was back in action as guide to Millie Knight for the Super-G fresh from their silver medal in the Downhill event on day one of the Games.
The pair were first to race clocking 1:33.76 to set the bar for the event. They saw ParalympicsGB teammates Menna Fitzpatrick and Jennifer Kehoe record a time of 1:34.54 to secure bronze but it wasn’t to be the gold medal as Slovakia’s Henrieta Farkasova and Natalia Subrtova, snatched first-place with a stunning run of 1:30.17.
After his second silver medal in two days Brett said:
“Millie has been nervous before but it won’t affect our skiing at all and when she crossed the line she said you were right it wasn’t bumpy at all!
“Because we are attached by headset I can just hear how she’s feeling. I can tell from Millie’s breathing if she’s a bit nervous or anxious from being together for two years and she did brilliantly well today.
“It’s really hard because when you come down first you have no idea because there’s no one to judge it against.
“When we saw Menna and Jen come down and we were ahead of them we knew it was a good run because they beat us in every race this season. Then it was just a waiting game. It’s amazing to be back on the podium today.”
Para Nordic Skiing
Former paratrooper Scott Meenagh had recovered from yesterday’s 7.5 km Biathlon event and was now eager to enter his first Paralympic Cross Country event and the demands of the 15 km race.
After finishing 18th yesterday Scott bettered that result by one , clocking 46:07.4 to finish 17th narrowly missing out on 16th after a sprint to the line with China’s Bitao Huang. After finishing the race, Scott collapsed into the snow confessing he had nothing left in the tank.
After the race, Scott said:
“I really enjoyed that, I gave it everything. I left everything out there today I’m so tired now,”
“It’s probably harder to switch off after the first race than before the first race. I think I was still buzzing last night.
“When you turn the light off that’s when you really start to truly and deeply analyse what went on during the day.
“It’s been amazing and fortunately I managed to get to sleep last night and to be straight back up and onto that buzz today has been unreal.”
Wheelchair Curling
Having secured a fantastic 5-2 win against the reigning World Champions, Norway on day one of the wheelchair curling round robin, Great Britain faced a double header against an experienced Swiss rink and the rink from Finland.
Unfortunately, Great Britain suffered a 7-4 morning-session defeat to Switzerland which meant there was a slight hint of early pressure heading into their evening game with Finland.
After a tense start which saw the teams tied 2-2 after the first three rinks Aileen Neilson’s rink pulled aware to secure an emphatic 9-2 victory.
At the end of a hard day’s competition Aileen commented:
“It would have been nice to be at 3-0 heading into the third day but we’ll certainly take 2-1, we’re still getting used to the venues and used to the stones, you need that time to get familiar with everything so we’re very happy to take a win from that last game.
“Any time you have a defeat you look back at what’s gone. What could we have done better, what didn’t we do so well and what things do we need to change from that?
“We certainly did that after the first game, we perhaps didn’t play at our best and that’s why we lost but we improved as the day went on and got that win.
“It’s always nice to end the day with a win, it gives you time to reflect nicely heading into the evening and be ready to go again the next day in a positive frame of mind.
“Between the games we take a bit of time to rest, put our emotions out there, have a bit to eat and then debrief. Whether we win or lose we know there are things that we can improve on and we’re always looking to do that.
“There are always shots you wish you make, we did enough in this game and hopefully we can build on that for tomorrow.
“This is a long competition where you might not play at your best in every game but that’s something we’ve known at the start.
“You can’t go as hard as you’d like to every game so management is very important, we’ve been training for that with early starts, late finishes and busy days so we’re ready.
“Physically and mentally we’re happy with that, now we just keep plugging on.”
The action continues tomorrow with the wheelchair curlers pitched against Sweden before taking on the much fancied Canadians.
For an overview of Channel 4’s comprehensive coverage of the Games go to:
http://paralympics.channel4.com/news/2018-winter-paralympics-day-day-coverage-guide/