Seddon Paralympian Jessica Gallagher has realised her dream of becoming the first Australian to win a medal at both a summer and winter Games.
Gallagher completed the unprecedented double by collecting bronze in the women’s vision-impaired one-kilometre cycling time trial in Rio with pilot Maddie Janssen.
Gallagher won Australia’s first female Paralympic winter medal on her 24th birthday, claiming bronze in the vision-impaired ski slalom at Vancouver 2010.
She then switched to para-athletics, competing in the long jump and javelin at the London 2012 Games before switching back to para-alpine skiing for a giant slalom bronze in Sochi in 2014.
The versatile 30-year-old decided to give track cycling a go when long jump was dropped from Rio’s program.
On Friday’s second day of competition in Rio, Gallagher and Janssen set a new Paralympic record and looked on track to collect gold before they were eclipsed by British gold medal winners Sophie Thornhill and pilot Helen Scott and then the Dutch team, which snatched silver.
A beaming Gallagher posted a photo with Jannsen and their medals to her Instagram account after the success.
“Still finding it hard to believe I have just become the first Australian athlete to medal at a summer and winter Paralympics or Olympics,” she said.
“I am so incredibly proud to have fulfilled this dream, to have overcome the unique challenges I’ve faced in transitioning between alpine skiing, track cycling and athletics, the ups and downs along the way and the incredible people who have been a part of this journey.”
The medal comes eight years after Gallagher’s devastation at being ruled out of the Beijing games on the eve of competition.
Australian doctors had declared Gallagher legally blind, but Paralympic scrutineers deemed her right eye 0.01 of a degree too sighted to legally compete.
Gallagher is facing the prospect of having to choose between the 2018 winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast.
“I’ve got some big decisions to make. At the moment I’m just going to soak it all up and enjoy the fact that we’ve just become Paralympic medallists,” she said.
Gallagher and Janssen have turned their focus to Sunday’s three-kilometre pursuit.
“We’ve never ridden one, so it’s going to be interesting,” she said.
-with Scott Spits
