NI skier Kelly Gallagher clinches third medal at IPC Worlds in Spain

Northern Ireland's Paralympic skier Kelly Gallagher has clinched her third medal at the IPC World Championships in Spain.

Gallagher and her guide Charlotte Evans finished second in Monday's Super Combined race at the La Molina resort.

It followed their silver medal in the Super-G last Thursday and bronze in Wednesday's downhill.

The County Down woman is competing in all five events for visually-impaired athletes in the north east of Spain.

"I'm really happy," said 27 year old Gallagher who became Northern Ireland's first winter Paralympian in Vancouver in 2010. "We know where we are at now skiing against some of the best girls in the world such as the Slovakians and the Russians.

"We're excited as we know what we need to do. We need to go back, train and go faster.

Gallagher continued; "We're really working on our confidence and it's really enjoyable. I'm having so much fun out here skiing with Charlotte. All of our training, which has been really hard, appears to be paying off."

The skier became the first British athlete to win a medal at an IPC World Ski Championships in 2011.

On that occasion, she won slalom silver and giant-slalom bronze.

She teamed up with Evans shortly after narrowly missing out on a medal at the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, and is intent on going one better in at the Winter Paralympics in Sochi next year.

"It's going pretty well," explained Evans. "Three medals out of four is a good result so far. Hopefully our form will continue tomorrow in the giant slalom.

"I think what we've achieved here gives us confidence ahead of Sochi and something to look forward to and aim for."

Competition started on 20 February and continues through to Wednesday.