Australia's Joany Badenhorst has been forced to pull out of her first Paralympics after injuring herself hours before her event.
Badenhorst was one of three Australians due to compete in the para-snowboard cross discipline making its Games debut in Sochi on Friday.
But on Friday morning the 19-year-old crashed heavily during training, sustaining an injury to her left knee.
The accident occurred on the same section of the course she'd been having trouble with in Thursday's session.
Australia's team doctor Geoff Thompson said Badenhorst is in severe pain and has been transported to the athletes' village hospital for scans to ascertain the exact nature and extent of the injury.
It comes as a further blow to Australia's medal-less Paralympic team who can't seem to take a trick in Sochi.
Badenhorst's left leg was ripped off around six inches below the affected knee when she was 10.
Playing with local kids on the family farm in her native South Africa, her pants became snagged on the plough of a tractor that was helping to backburn an area of land.
Intense pain around her stump had plagued the teenager's lead-up to the Games, making it difficult to train for long periods.
But she had recently had a breakthrough after changing her custom-built prosthetic racing leg and was in good spirits heading into Friday.
Fourteen-year-old Ben Tudhope and 41-year-old Trent Milton will still compete for Australia in the men's event.
Tudhope is Australia's youngest-ever winter Paralympian and the youngest of the more than 630 athletes competing at the Games.
