Kelly Gallagher ready to celebrate Sochi Super-G success alongside the ‘big boys’
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For all that she has spent the past five years on an extended skiing-related career break, Kelly Gallagher is a statistician by trade and training, and the bookmakers’ rank outsider on the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year shortlist is fully aware of the likelihood of a visually-impaired athlete triumphing in a popularity contest over the likes of Gareth Bale, Rory McIlroy and Lewis Hamilton. “The only chance I have is if there’s some kind of phone disconnection and only my family can get through,” she says. “If I can convince everyone else to be out that evening, maybe it might happen.” But it is statistically unlikely that anyone will be more pleased to be in Glasgow than Gallagher, whose nomination follows her success in the Super-G at the Paralympic Games in March, when she and her guide, Charlotte Evans, became the first Britons, able-bodied or otherwise, ever to win a gold medal in skiing. “I think it’s amazing for the sport, to be up there with what I would call the big boys, the guys who are on the back pages all the time,” she says. “I was excited just to maybe be invited along to the event and see some of the stars, but the fact they’ve put us up there as a nominee, alongside the boxing and the football and the motor sport and the golf, I was like, wow. I think it’s really exciting to be shortlisted. I’m really pumped to be able to be there and to celebrate alongside everyone.” Gallagher talks in a cheerful stream, words hurling themselves out of her at downhill pace. If she can sound this excited about talking to the Observer, heaven only knows what might happen on Sunday evening. “It’s been an incredible year,” she says. “Before the Games there was no coverage of our sport at all. Now it seems there’s starting to be a bit of a spotlight on visually-impaired sport, on women’s sport, on winter sport, and that’s really exciting for me.” Sunday’s ceremony, coming a week after she and Evans flew to Austria to start in earnest their preparations for a new season, brings down the curtain on an unforgettable year for the 29-year-old, who as a result of her success in Sochi was made an MBE in June. “I never even aspired to do anything like that,” she says. “It was a real honour to be awarded something like that from outside the sport, by the monarchy. And then [in April] we got to meet the Irish president and the Queen and she held my medal and that was just really crazy for me. It was such a bizarre experience and just so different to anything we’d been involved in and very special for us. I think those two occasions were definitely something that I’m really going to treasure.” But as an outsider perhaps the most unlikely thing about her year is that, before she started being repeatedly pestered by royals, as she packed her bags and prepared to leave Sochi she had considered her Paralympics a failure. And perhaps understandably: of her five events she completed only two, and in the one she didn’t win she finished last. “Basically, the only good thing that happened in the Paralympics was us winning that gold medal – every other race went terrible. I’ve never had a race series in my life like that,” she says. “We always start off maybe a bit rubbish, but never like losing the event. After the downhill my heart was broken, I didn’t know if I could compete again. And then Charlotte came and gave me a bit of tough love. We decided, you know, we literally couldn’t do any worse. “Then we just got hit by bad luck. My feet came off the skis a couple of times, and once I fell when we were leading. But whatever happened in those other races I couldn’t have put any more effort in. I put in my whole heart. “When we were in Sochi we didn’t really think we’d done that well, and it’s taken me a wee while to come to terms with it. But before the Games our ambition was just to feel good about our performances. We wanted to get to the bottom and feel: ‘That was a really good run, and we didn’t hold back.’ And that’s kind of what we felt.” Once this weekend is over Gallagher’s life promises to become a little more serene, as she returns to the Alps and preparation for the world championships, to be held in Panorama, Canada, in February and March. “The worlds have a really special vibe to them because there’s not so much media, and it’s not quite the juggernaut that is the Games,” she says. “It’s just a really nice event where everyone competes to be the best they can be.” It is as if she is both revelling in the attention that her success in Sochi has brought, and quite looking forward to it coming to an end. “It’s definitely not something I would choose, but it’s something that seems to be part of the job now, of being a winner. And you want to be the winner,” Gallagher says. “It’s been brilliant to be on television, showing our sport. Not being interviewed – I don’t care about the fame or anything like that – but I do care that young people get to see disability in a different way, not in a negative way but a really positive way. It’s hard to equate the word blindness with skiing at 95mph. It can be hard for people to understand that, I think. But maybe if children know because of me that, if they want to be a ski racer, that it’s possible for them, well, that’d be good.” THE DETAILS The venue Glasgow’s SSE Hydro, which staged gymnastics and netball at the Commonwealth Games and gigs by Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus. It is Sports Personality’s first trip to Scotland. The awards The main award will be decided by a viewer vote on Sunday night, while panels have chosen the team of the year, coach of the year, overseas sports personality, the Helen Rollason award, BBC Get Inspired unsung hero Award (to be presented by Eddie Izzard) and the young sports personality of the ear (gymnast Claudia Fragapane, golfer Bradley Neil and paracyclist Sophie Thornhill making up the shortlist). Plus Scottish cycling great Sir Chris Hoy’s lifetime achievement award. “I never thought I’d see my name alongside the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave, David Beckham, Seve Ballesteros and others who’ve received this honour,” he said. What we won’t see An awkward satellite-delayed presentation to a poolside Andy Murray in Miami. Last year’s winner is not on the shortlist. The TV Gary Lineker, Clare Balding and Gabby Logan host on BBC1 from 8pm. |