First medal of any colour for Great Britain on snow at the Winter Games.
Veteran snowboarder Jenny Jones made history on Sunday by winning Britain’s first ever Winter Olympics medal on the snow — and said she was struggling to come to terms with the enormity of her achievement.
Jones, 33, claimed bronze in the inaugural women’s slopestyle competition after a second run score of 87.25, behind Jamie Anderson (95.25) of the United States in the gold medal position and Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi (92.50).
The competitor from Bristol made a name for herself earlier in the week by revealing she used to keep a teabag in her bra as a good luck charm.
Although that has long since been abandoned, her luck, seemingly, did not run out.
“I’m just very pleased and so, so surprised right now, still, at what just happened,” she said.
“I can’t believe that I made it onto the podium.”
Jones revealed she only took up snowboarding at around 16 or 17 years of age when she had a half-hour lesson with her brothers on a dry ski slope near her home.
She said she was far from a natural but loved the sport straight away.
“I couldn’t even do a toe-edge turn,” she said.
“I really enjoyed it and decided to go and work as chalet maid so I could snowboard more often.”
It was while doing so in France that she became attached to a teabag.
“I was working as a chalet maid and it was very rare to get teabags out in the mountains — this was quite a long time ago — so when people brought out British teabags I managed to get one of those teabags and kept it secure in my undies,” explained Jones earlier this week.
“I had a really good day that day and landed loads of new tricks, and decided that was the teabag.”
However, that particular superstition — and Jones has others as she has a pair of lucky knickers and a favourite board — could not last forever.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “It pretty much disintegrated into nothing.”
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