A teenage sports star has claimed her third medal of the Paralympic Games.
Menna Fitzpatrick, 19, from Tytherington, raced ahead of the pack to win silver in the women’s visually impaired giant slalom.
This was the former Fallibroome Academy and Prestbury pupil’s third medal of the games, after claiming bronze in the super giant slalom and another silver in the super combined event, in PyeongChang.
This latest triumph is a world away from her first day of competing, when Menna and her guide Jennifer Kehoe crashed on the opening bend of their first race.
Since then the pair have gone from strength to strength and shown their resilience.
Menna said: “It felt absolutely amazing, you can really feel the acceleration from your skis and your bodies driving you forward, Jen was just going for it and the feeling was so good.
“The feeling in your stomach is almost like a roller coaster, you leave your body behind at the start gate. That feeling is absolutely amazing.”
This performance was their best of the week, with a time of 1m13s89 in their second giant slalom run.
The teenager said: “That second run was so much better. We reviewed the first run and there were a few sections where I was just a bit too hard on the edges which slowed us down a little.
“On that run I was going for it and sticking right behind Jen and making her do all the work for once.”
The pair were in great form leading into the games in South Korea.
Winning four medals, including two golds, at the World Cup finals in Canada in February.
Menna, who has previously studied at Macclesfield College, says she now just wants to relax and take in her and Jennifer’s success.
She added: “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 the celebrating for us so far.”
“The next few days are recovery, that’s the name of this game, we’ll go for a swim, ice baths and physio and hopefully be relaxing as much as possible.
“It’s taken a lot of time to recover from the downhill, to get back into the swing and things, but we’ve been able to really enjoy this.
“Now we’re just going to give it all we’ve got because we’ve got nothing to lose, we are enjoying life!”
