FITZ JUST GREAT

Skiing golden girl Menna is our greatest winter paralympian

TEENAGE sensation Menna Fitzpatrick struck gold on the final day to become Britain’s greatest-ever winter Paralympian.

The 19-year-old Welsh skier – along with guide Jen Kehoe – produced the performance of her life on the final run (right) to deny Slovakia’s red-hot favourites Henrieta Farkasova and Natalia Subrtova their fifth gold.

Fitzpatrick had crashed out of the opening downhill event last week before the pair won a bronze and two silver behind their Slovak rivals.

They began the final run in the slalom vision impaired yesterday trailing by 0.66 seconds but ended up winning by that margin after a storming final flourish to win Britain’s first gold of the Games. Fitzpatrick said: “We wanted to show what we are capable of. I am so proud of what we did out there.” The teenager, whose day did not start as she might have hoped when a ski boot fell on her head, added: “I didn’t have the greatest start, you wouldn’t have thought it was our day. “I was exhausted after this whole period of racing. The nerves and the emotion were just overwhelming so that didn’t make for a great start.

“We just sang songs and danced and it made me feel a lot better and it seemed to work. We may have been dancing in the start gate! We just needed something to make us giggle, and that calmed me down.” Fitzpatrick and army officer Kehoe (above with their medals) were the penultimate pairing to go out in the second run, and they stormed down the course to go top of the leaderboard but had an anxious wait to see what the Slovak pairing could do. But Farkasova and Subrtova were unable to cope with the pressure and could only clock the thirdfastest time of the second run.

Fitzpatrick said: “I felt that we skied really well. We went for it and as soon Jen said go for it, we flew down that last bit.”

Millie Knight and Brett Wild won bronze for Britain to add to their two silvers in the downhill and super-G.

Kelly Gallagher, who won Britain’s first Winter Paralympic gold in Sochi four years ago with Charlotte Evans, was sixth with new guide Gary Smith.

It means the ParalympicsGB team won seven medals. Before the games, their UK Sport target was six to 12 podium finishes.

Kehoe added: “We were trying to keep it together on the medal podium because it was hugely emotional.

“It’s unbelievable to win a gold medal and it is beyond our wildest dreams.”