Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

Sporting Witness

Podcasts

Factual: History

Sport

The inside and personal story of the key moments from sporting history

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Sporting Witness: The Queen of Paralympic Snowboarding

Magazines & Reviews

bibian.jpg

26/02/2022 GMT

The Queen of Paralympic Snowboarding

BBC World Service - Sporting Witness, The Queen of Paralympic Snowboarding

Bibian Mentel-Spee campaigned for her event to be in the games, then won the first Gold.

Dutchwoman Bibian Mentel-Spee campaigned for her event to be in the games, then won Gold in the first event in 2014.

Bibian Mentel-Spee became a national hero in the Netherlands after campaigning for snowboarding to become part of the Winter Paralympics and then winning Gold the first time the event was held, at Sochi in 2014. Mentel-Spee had switched to Paralympic sport after cancer forced her to have a leg amputated. She would win two more gold snowboarding medals at the next games in Pyeongchang in 2018, just weeks after another gruelling round of cancer treatment. Mentel-Spee died in 2021. Matthew Kenyon speaks to her husband, Edwin Spee, and to Canadian Paralympic snowboarder, Michelle Salt. 

PHOTO: Bibian Mentel-Spee in action in 2014 (Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Sporting Witness

The Queen of Paralympic Snowboarding

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service