Meenagh thrilled with impressive biathlon effort

By The smile was impossible to wipe from Scott Meenagh’s face after he produced the best performance of his Winter Paralympic Games debut.

The Scottish Para-nordic skier had a tough time of it in Pyeongchang but found his groove in the men’s 15km biathlon and shot clean on his first two rounds to be in the top ten at the midpoint. His clinical edge fell away as the wind picked up but crossing in a time of 58:58.1 and finishing 14th meant Meenagh was thrilled, with one more cross country race to come today.

“You couldn’t slap the smile offmyface,”hesaid.“i’mreally happy. It was on after two shoots, I really thought I was in a strong position.

“It was great, I know what I’ve got wrong today and I’m going to go and work on it but I’m really happy with that.

“I’m extremely inspired and I feel that tomorrow if I hit it with the same intent and I can push a little bit harder then there is no reason why I can’t be up there.

“I feel like I skied really well and I was in a really nice place for the first couple of shoots. The third and fourth shoots caught me out a little.”

Meenagh was the first British Para Nordic skier to take to the Paralympic start line for 20 years.

Yet a trip to Pyeongchang is more akin to the next part of the journey as opposed to the final destination for the former rower.

Meenagh lost both his legs in an explosion while serving in Afghanistan but, with this new-found knowledge of Winter Paralympic Games life, the 28-year-old is not looking back anymore.

He said: “We’ve seen a glimpse of what can be and it’s awesome.

“These Games have taught me lots of lessons but they have also shown me a glimpse of the level we can be at. If we get it right on the day, we are no worse than any of these guys out here.

“We have a lot of work to do in the next four years but I’ve seen a lot of positives here.”