Dutch snowboarder wins second Paralympic gold, despite recent cancer treatment
Snowboarder Bibian Mentel has won her second gold medal of the Paralympic winter games in Pyeongchang in South Korea, despite finishing cancer treatment just a few weeks ago.
Mentel retained her Olympic snowboard cross title earlier this week and picked up the banked slalom title on Friday. Her team mate Lisa Bunschoten took bronze.
Mentel, now 45, was first diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 27 when her right leg was amputated from the knee down. Since then she has undergone repeated treatment, the latest being in December when she was told the tumour in her neck required surgery and a titanium frame was inserted to replace a vertebrae.
The operation left her with no time to get into training for the Paralympics. ‘Of course I would have liked to have had more time to prepare and I am not as fit as I could be, but I feel good,’ she told the Volkskrant before the games.
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