Beginnings to a new age of technological innovations. Paralympic sport has come a long way. Record numbers watched the london and rio summer games. Now the Winter Paralympians are starting to make their mark, too. Sochi 2014 was undoubtedly the biggest Winter Paralympics to date. From a british perspective, britain at least dazzled, winning six medals. That was four years after drawing a blank in vancouver. But will that be good and of the podium places In Pyeongchang . Jade hetherington was one of britons biggest success stories, securing four of gbs six medals. But she has since retired. Her Paralympic Team mate Kelly Gallagher is still competing. In 2014 she claimed britains first ever winter paralympic gold and continues to win medals. A heavy crash in training for this years World Championships ended her season early. But she is determined to return stronger than ever. You tend to fall a lot in skiing, you are pushing yourself to the limit, it was a real accident. I didnt land a jump very well after and i could not recover. I was going over 85 kilometres per hour. I felt there was something wrong. But i couldnt tell what it was. My my guide got to me first and i asked him to prise my Engagement Ring of first i have my priorities i dislocated my elbow and broke some ribs and i hurt my leg. I had a Big Bone Bruise on my right leg, but im on the mend at least. No one is harder on me than myself. Nobody wants to win more than i do. Thats why a need all the support. When i came back, i was so overwhelmed. I was like, joined the party i dont see it as negative in any way. I think in Northern Ireland and all of the world we should celebrate peoples endeavours and then trying their best in all walks of life. I think its class, yeah. Its taken me a bit longer to put my trust in myself. I lost a lot of confidence after saatchi from chopping and changing and not knowing what i was up two. Now it is odd to me and gary and my Sports Psychologist to create a winning team. I could plan an amazing speech, but im not sure i am the best person to plan a wedding. Ijust i just love it. I want to get the skiing out of the road. Then i can have a good time. Realistically, i will probably be Back Training on snow in august and then the idea is to be back for the full season race and training and then back to pyeongchang in the summertime. Hopefully i will have something to celebrate and if not, i am moving onto the wedding. Im sure well be back pushing to the podium and challenging for the medals later this year. Missing the World Championships did give two other visually appears impact rising star british skiers the chance to prove their potential. Visually impaired. Im 18 and a world champion. Im a world cup champion. Pyeongchang will be my second parolo pics. Paralympics. It will be my first paralympics. How important is a guide . I can only see 2 meters. Ifi if i were to ski on my own it would bea if i were to ski on my own it would be a disaster. We clock about 90 kilometres per hour. It feels amazing. I have got brett and he skis two meters in front of me. He said the Snow Conditions and the terrain and then i can indicate whether i can see him and whether we need to speed up or slow down. I communicate. This is a special partnership. Id say we will probably be Friends For Life now. It is amazing from a perspective what she does. Im pretty nervous going 15 kilometres down a hill. She must have a screw loose or something im blind in my left eye i can only see about 5 vision in the right eye. I mainly focus on the orange jacket and that is pretty much all i can see at that speed. We get on amazingly well. She is pretty much like a sister. Without the fighting. When i come into the sport i started working with millie so i was able to build the knowledge and experience and then when i started working withjenna, we could slot in nicely. Its a huge responsibility. Until you do it, you dont realise what the weight is on your shoulders is. You are in charge of somebodys life in a trust you completely. Its quite an honour. Its quite restricting, being visually impaired off the piece. But on the skis, the speed i can go the freedom i have, i will never be able to drive a car, but i can ski faster than some people can drive. You have internal rivalries. You can push one another. It is great having competition. Im constantly thinking, what would merely be doing . Millie. She is quite fearless and a good technical skier. She just has strength behind her. She is a fantastic skier. She won the gold in 2014. We are all great competition. Despite Kelly Gallaghers absence, these two helped push each other to the podium positions. They powered to an impressive giant slalom bronze, whilst millie and brett would make history. They claimed britains first ever World Championship gold medal in the sport before adding three further silver medals to their haul. All well cheered on by millies mum. Ijust come back from an illness, so come into this World Championship, i didnt have any expectations. So to win a gold, it was incredible. Can you enjoy watching her until she is finished . No. As long as she comes over that ridge and when she comes to the finish line, than i can relax a little. My mother has been there from the start, always fighting my corner. For her to be here is phenomenal. The support is incredible. Can you describe how you are feeling now . Im chuffed to bits. Im very proud. They have worked so hard for this. I am really pleased. It is a good preparation for next year. This gold is fantastic. We couldnt have thought of anything better. But the end goal is south korea. We train every day with a goal of winning a gold. We go to the gym at 6am and then school and then back to the gym. It is tough. Winning or getting any type of medal in the paralympics is one of my biggest dreams. It will be absolutely amazing for us together to be on the podium In Pyeongchang. Winning a medal with your best friend would be life changing. From the super speedy skiers to slightly, calmer curlers. Gb have excelled in it in olympics and the paralympics are looking to follow suit. There were just an inch away from gold in 2006. Whilst they battled to bronze in sochi three years ago. Their journey to pyeongchang could best be described as a roller coaster. Jess creighton takes up the story. Wheelchair curling may appear a simple sport but unlike in the olympic version, which as sweepers, in the paralympics, if an athlete makes a mistake, there is no one to brush up after them. Team gb have been successful though. Two medals from a maximum of three since the sport made its paralympic debut. But relegation from the Division A Macro Championships in 2015 saw all of their funding axed. Sochi was one of the highlights of my career. For the team to return with a bronze was a huge achievement. The funding was fantastic to have and it allowed me to give up myjob as a teacher and train full time as an athlete. So that was a major blow to take the funding away. The coachsjob was injeopardy. There was a lot at stake. We decided to cut our squad so it cut it from 12 to seven at that point. They responded well. They buckled down. They have thrown everything at the challenge of getting back the World Championships and qualifying for the paralympics. Sport scotland stepped in with some money and against all the odds, they defied expectations to secure their place at the 2018 Winter Paralympics late last year. This man is one of the new members of the squad keen to show what he can do on the sports bigger stage after an unlikely introduction to curling. I was in a Pub Playing Dominoes in a wheelchair and the coach asked me if id ever tried Wheelchair Curling and i said, no. I didnt know it existed. But i loved it. I played rugby growing up and being in a wheelchair, i missed that. Tea m team dynamic and aggressive. Dominoes wasnt really fulfilling it. Angie malone has competed in all three paralympics since the sports debut. After winning bronze and silver, only one colour will do In Pyeongchang. We had such an exciting time in sochi, coming back with a bronze. We want to go out to pyeongchang and let the rest of the world know what a great team we are. We are confident, we believe we can be on the podium. So we are going for the big medal. Still to come we meet two of gbs leading prospects in one of the games most exciting new sports, snowboarding. British troops injured in active service tell us about their bid to end gbs 20 year of absence from Nordic Skiing. And germanys five time 0lympic champion gives Us A Guide To Sit Skiing Ahead of her bid to make more history. First to the hosts of the last games, russia. Despite holding what was arguably the greatest Winter Paralympics of all time, the countrys reputation has nosedived recently. Following the mclaren report, commissioned by the world anti doping agency, russia was banned from some sports at the rio 2016 olympics. The International Pa ralympic committee took an even bolder stance, excluding all russian athletes from the rio paralympics. The report alleged their country had operated a state sponsored doping programme. Further revelations have since been revealed, claiming that over thousand russian athletes they have benefited from cheating in events across london 2012 and the sochi 2014 games. May have benefited. Russia remains unable to compete in five of the six winter paralympic sports. The question is whether theyll be allowed back in full for the pyeongchang games. I asked their president. There has to be a transformation in the manner in which the nation looks at para sport. We have laid down certain conditions and theres a lot of activity and energy being put into getting things right and back to normality, if i can put it that way. Sochi was a bigger games and it is somewhat tarnished because of what has come up with the mclaren report. I can understand that. We got this terrible news and we knew nothing of it. It was all new to us. I still have fond memories of sochi, but most certainly what has happened has tarnished it. How confident are you russia will be there In Pyeongchang . The im not looking for someone to get down on their knees and say sorry, i think its something most people accept occurred. Lets fix it and move on. Russia is a great sporting nation. They are missed in the sporting sense of honour but we cant have nations competing when their performances have been tarnished by what has gone on. Lets wipe the slate clean if we can and ensure it never happens again. Evolving sports and adding new event is vital to the growth of the games and freestyle snowboarding has been huge for the olympics. For the paralympics, snowboarding came before sochi, but there were no gb competitors. But we now possess some of the best in the world. Ben moore won a world silver and bronze in 2015 and finished third at this years competition. His team mate had to be a little more patient, but has now made his breakthrough with World Championship and world cup silver medals in the last two months. But their journey toward the Snowboarding Summit has been farfrom smooth. I used to be in the army. Joined at the age of 16. I was deployed to afghanistan at age 18. 0n patrol, stood on an ied, had my leg smashed apart. They spent 18 months operating on it and it did not work. I was on my motorcycle a decade ago. I was knocked off. A guy tried to cioss i was knocked off. A guy tried to cross my lane. I bounced down the road and lost the use of my arm. They said in the end, you can deal with it or you can get rid of it and at that point, i was tired of operations, so i decided to have it off below the knee. And now ive never looked back. It has completely changed my life. There is no way i would be able to do this if i still had my leg. Ive always been quite competitive and i love Getting Better at things, so for me it was ok, ive lost my leg, now ive got to learn to walk and as soon as ive done that i will do something else. Snowboarding is progressing to the crazy rate. Sochi was a big one. They had above racing below knees. Off the back of that, theyve now got three categories. Weve got upper limb. I am in the upper limb category, so anyone with an issue upwards from the waist will be classed enough. I do have my arm, the reason why it is in this sling is because it keeps it from moving around and putting me off balance. With the snowboarders that there is that cool factor. It is a boost to haveitin that cool factor. It is a boost to have it in the paralympics. Snowboarding is about being stylish and well do things to keep our own style. New riders pop up everywhere. There were lots of people made aware of snowboarding from the games. Thex the x games. It is mind blowing. We go there and prove were notjust disabled riders. That was huge. Can you sum up what a gold would mean to you . I think you can see with a grin on my face it would mean the world to me. I get to represent my country and to have a gold medal would sum up my snowboarding career. Definitely. Ive got a lot of pressure on us how. We have coaches and physios. Theres more people on the teams and it all helps. If we can get medals, it will be massive and will open up so many more ways and getting more new people involved. The Pyeongchang Paralympics will not just be about the british athletes. There are Countless International star is looking to challenge for multiple medals. And germanys leading paralympian is one of them. I am from germany and i am a paralympic champion. I love skiing, its fast and when i get out i feel a lot of the journey. In the wheelchair i can go wherever i want to. It is fast. Id love it. When you ski, you have to push your hip into the snow and you can see how it goes into the snow and you can make your turn. The sport has developed a lot. The first games were in vancouver and for me, it was a great event. But when i compare it to sochi, it was bigger. You had a lot more tv stations and lot more crowds. It grows. Thats very good. I have a suspension from a motorcycle. When the snow is a little bumpy, sochi was magnificent. I came there and knew it was possible for me to win. But i had a lot of pressure. I was so happy when i won the first gold medal and i said, now i have 800 kilos left. The hardest thing is to have the balance. We have crutches in both hands, so i can stabilise myself. These would not be good for skiing, so i can push here. I have another little ski and that makes it better. Pyeongchang is important to me and i look forward to it. There is now even more pressure for me. It is very difficult, but on the other hand, i want to be in this position and have the pressure and have this achievement. It feels very cool and things that happened in sochi, its something i want to do again. She has every chance. She won three world gold medals earlier this year, although her arch rival took the other two, their Battle For Paralympic honours could be one of the highlights of the 2018 games. Another of the ones to watch includes this snowboarder from the netherlands, who won a paralympic gold medal. Away from the slopes, one of the most exciting sports to look out for his paradise hockey. Para para ice hasse. Hockey. Previously known as sledge hockey. There will be no british team because they failed to qualify. But the usa will be those to beat having won three of the last four paralympic games. And finally, to Nordic Skiing. This athlete took silver and bronze in sochi but is expected to challenge for gold next year. 0n the mens side, canada will be looking to add to their paralympic titles. With brian mckeever. Britain has not had a nordic skier competing since 1998 in japan. But a group of injured british troops are hoping to end that 20 year run. It is a hard sport. Everything is full and flat out. If you dont do the training, you get found out very quickly. You are maxed out all the time. Your lungs are on fire. In their words, its a sport that separates the men are from the boys. 0vercoming Adversity is nothing new to these two men who were both injured whilst on patrol in afghanistan in 2011. I stepped on an Improvised Explosive Device planted in the ground. I was iwas in i was in the royal engineers. Havent had to stand on an ied. In the blast, i lost both my legs above the knee. I was awake through my injury. I managed to treat myself at the beginning. The doctor put me asleep. I woke beginning. The doctor put me asleep. Iwoke up beginning. The doctor put me asleep. I woke up in camp bastion. And on the flight home. I can picture every stage. It was a tough time. You go from being a super able and super strong and capable soldier and then all of a sudden youre in bed for four months having to be fed and having people did the most basic tasks for you. It was very tough mentally to deal with that. Once you get injured, youre full of tablets and starts a bit of weight i do feel pretty rubbish. You think your life is over. And then, things start to change. In my recovery i was introduced to various opportunities. Mainly through a sports initiative. Sport became the catalyst for rediscovering what i could do instead of worrying about how i couldnt get up and down stairs. I could throw myself down a slope on a ski. This man was part of the 1998 team, the last british athletes to compete in Nordic Skiing events at the paralympics. He was going to coach the new recruits, but gb selectors had other ideas. They saw me skiing and said, no you should be giving us advice, you should try for it again and that is why i have ended up here. It really is an honour and to compete for the country. I have a token medal for being at the 1998 paralympics, but what i want to do is to get a bronze, silver or gold, thats the main aim. The ultimate goal is pyeongchang. Ive not come here for a laugh. It is a chance to redefine yourself. You are no longer known as the guy who lost his legs at work. It is a ha rd who lost his legs at work. It is a hard sport but it is very rewarding. I would love to be part of the legacy to move it on for great britain. With a year to go until the Winter Paralympics it is clear britain has the potential to win many medals In Pyeongchang. Gbs best ever haul was ten in the 1984 games and to get anywhere close to that would be an incredible achievement given the strength of International Competition compared to them. Then. But achieving a record total is far from impossible and we will keep you up to date with all the latest over the next 12 months as the athletes continue on their path to pyeongchang. Good evening. We had quite a bit of sunshine in the north west and the south east today. It was lovely and warm. The temperature reached 18 celsius. For Northern Ireland we had the warmest day of the year so far, 16 degrees. We had a lot of cloud in central areas. This was in essex in the sunnier slot in the south and east. You can see some sunshine in guernsey. They have had a lot of sea fog in the Channel Islands recently. That will filter back in overnight. Damp and dreary conditions. It is joined by another Weather Front coming into Northern Ireland made in the night. With all the cloud around and be patchy rain it looks like a fairly mild night. However, it will be rather grey and misty first thing in the morning. Because we are sandwiched between those Weather Fronts. A different day for the eastern part of england. Between them there will be sunshine for part of the midlands. Further west, the next Weather Front and advancing into the south west and wales. Initially the east wales doing quite well. Mourning ring for Northern Ireland away. Hopefully the rain in the east of scotland will be followed by dry and bright weather. The Weather Front coming in from the west staggers slowly eased and fizzles out as does the Weather Front in the east. A lot of dry weather on offer. Patchy rain and drizzle. After the early murky start hopefully things will improve. Temperatures are dipping behind the second Weather Front. Under the Clearing Skies tomorrow night, it will be a cold night. We start monday morning with temperatures close to freezing in some parts of scotla nd close to freezing in some parts of scotland and northern england. That is because we have a ridge of high pressure. That will often bring with it drier, brighter weather. The Weather Fronts towards the north will plague the north and west. Potentially by tuesday sinking further south. Still dry. This is bbc world news today, broadcasting in the uk and around the world. Im alpa patel. The headlines the turkish president attacks the dutch as nazis, for blocking a campaign visit by the countrys foreign minister. The un warns of the largest humanitarian crisis in more than 70 years. 20 Million People face starvation in parts of africa. A boost for indias prime minister, as his bjp party wins a landslide in key state elections. And a record Equalling 18th Successive wins for englands rugby team as they thrash scotland to retain their six nations title