Kelly Gallagher and guide Charlotte Evans won Great Britain’s first gold medal at the Winter Paralympics in this day in 2014.
Two days after suffering the disappointment of finishing last in the downhill, Gallagher and guide Evans made history with victory in the women’s visually impaired super-G in Sochi.
In the aftermath of that blow, a tearful Evans had vowed to bounce back and her confidence proved well-founded.
She said at the time: “I am the blubbering wreck, but our communication was awesome and we have no excuse. You can see my disappointment, but we will come back fighting.”
The Britons were the first of the six pairs to tackle the course and having posted a time of one minute and 28.72 seconds they faced an anxious wait to see if their time would be beaten.
Slovakia’s Henrieta Farkasova, the downhill gold medallist, crashed out and when Australian Melissa Perrine also failed to finish, British gold was secure.
For Northern Ireland’s Gallagher, then 28, redemption proved sweet after she had doubted both herself and her partnership with 22-year-old Evans.
Gallagher said: “I lost all of my faith in myself, in Charlotte, in our processes, in what we were doing, and I was like, ‘I only have a couple of hours to put this together because we’re going to be back on snow and we’ve got to race’.
“We wouldn’t have got here if it wasn’t for Charlotte. When I haven’t believed in myself, she has believed in us and believed in herself.”
There was further good news for Britain when Jade Etherington and guide Caroline Powell, who had finished second in the downhill to claim the nation’s first Paralympic medal on snow in 20 years, added bronze to their haul.
