Kelly GallagherMBE (born 18 May 1985), is a retired British skier and the first athlete from Northern Ireland to compete in the Winter Paralympics. Gallagher won Britain's first ever Winter Paralympic gold medal during Sochi 2014.[1]
Childhood
Kelly was born on 18 May 1985[2] and was raised in Bangor in the north of County Down. Her father, Patrick Gallagher, was an airline pilot. She is a graduate in mathematics from the University of Bath.[3][4]
Pre-Paralympics
Kelly has oculocutaneous albinism,[5] is visually impaired and competes with a sighted guide. At the 2009 New Zealand Winter Games Gallagher, competing with guide Claire Robb, won gold in her first ever international race, the giant slalom.[6]
She was selected for the British team at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in February 2010.[7][8] Gallagher is funded by the Sport Northern Ireland Athlete Support Programme and supported by the Sports Institute for Northern Ireland and is also backed by Disability Sports NI.[9]
2010 Paralympics
Kelly was one of seven skiers for Great Britain at the 2010 Winter Paralympics and became the first athlete from Northern Ireland to compete in the Winter Paralympics.[7] At the Games she contested the giant slalom and slalom events for visually impaired athletes.[10] She finished sixth in the slalom but achieved the British team's highest finish, missing out on a medal by a single place and 3.36 seconds in the giant slalom.[11]
Between Paralympics
Downhill final of the 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships at La Molina in Spain. Kelly Gallagher (white tunic) and guide Charlotte Evans (orange tunic)
Following the Paralympics Gallagher sought a new sighted guide to work with her through to the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi and selected 19-year-old Charlotte Evans from Medway. Evans had been out of the sport after she snapped a cruciate ligament in 2009 but took up the role having become a qualified coach.[12]
In January 2011 Gallagher became the first British athlete to win a medal at the IPC World Championships. Competing with Evans the pair won the silver medal in the slalom and bronze in the giant slalom at the event held in Sestriere only five weeks after they started working together.[13] The pairing also won a gold medal in slalom at the 2011 Europa Cup Finals.[14]
2014 Paralympics
Gallagher won Britain's first ever Winter Paralympic gold on 10 March 2014, during the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia. She finished first in the visually impaired Super-G competition.[5] She fell during both the super-combined and the giant slalom.
In 2017 Gallagher was selected for the 2017 World Para Alpine Skiing Championships in Tarvisio in Italy. Partnered with Gary Smith, she crashed during training on the championship slopes and injured herself after colliding into the safety netting.[16] She sustained a dislocated elbow and three fractured ribs in the accident and was airlifted to a local hospital.[16] Gallagher's injuries ruled her out of the championship and her subsequent rehabilitation meant that she only returned to the slopes in the season leading up to the 2018 Winter Paralympics.[17] Despite losing time to her injuries Gallagher was still able to secure her place in the Great Britain team for the 2018 Paralympics.[17]
2019 World Championships
At the 2019 World Para Alpine Skiing Championships, Gallagher and Smith narrowly missed out on medals in the slalom and the giant slalom by finishing fourth, being pipped to the bronze by a tenth of a second in the latter by team-mates Menna Fitzpatrick and Jennifer Kehoe. However they claimed their first medal of the championships in the downhill, where they took a silver behind Fitzpatrick and Kehoe. They then went on to take two bronzes in the super-G and combined, increasing Gallagher's number of Worlds medals won to nine.[18]
