Fitzpatrick and Kehoe pocket another silver
Visually impaired skiers second in giant slalom Wheelchair curlers beat Germans but lose to US
Great Britain’s Menna Fitzpatrick and guide Jennifer Kehoe secured their second silver and third medal overall of the Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics in yesterday’s visually impaired giant slalom event.
Fitzpatrick and Kehoe made a disappointing start to these Games, failing to finish the downhill event on Saturday, but they have gone on to claim super-g bronze on Sunday and now have secured two silvers in as many days.
The pair matched their finish in Tuesday’s super-combined event as they posted a time of 2min 28.34sec over their two runs yesterday. That was 5.34 sec behind Henrieta Farkasova and Natalia Subrtova, of Slovakia, who have won each of the four events.
Fitzpatrick and Kehoe’s teammates Kelly Gallagher and Gary Smith came fifth for their best finish of these Games, and Millie Knight and Brett Wild were down in seventh.
“It felt absolutely amazing, you can really feel the acceleration from your skis and your bodies driving you forward,” said Fitzpatrick. “Jen was just going for it and the feeling was so good.
“It just doesn’t sink in, when we get to celebrate we’ll have a chance to realise what we’ve done, our families have done all of the celebrating for us so far.”
Britain now have five medals from these Games, sitting 15th in the overall table. Knight and Wild were silver medallists in both Saturday and Sunday’s events.
The women’s visually impaired skiing concludes on Sunday with the slalom event.
Britain’s James Whitley came 11th in the men’s standing giant slalom, while Scott Meenagh was 16th in the qualification runs of the men’s cross-country skiing 1.1km sprint sitting event, meaning the Scot missed out on the semi-finals.
In the wheelchair curling, the British team had a mixed day. Aileen Neilson’s rink bounced back from losing both of their matches on Tuesday by triumphing 8-3 against Germany in their opener yesterday.
However, they were subsequently defeated 9-3 by the United States, leaving Neilson and her team-mates joint-fourth alongside Switzerland in the round-robin standings, with five victories and four losses.