After her hospital release, Reid was assessed by the Australian medical and physiotherapy team before making the decision with her coaches to withdraw from the Games, Paralympics Australia confirmed on Wednesday.

After racing on Sunday, Australian team captain Sean Pollard said he believed the Paralympic course was harder than the Olympic course in Livigno.

“If I’m being completely honest, it was pretty scary. The first feature was doable but just really scary, really high speed,” he said. “It was super technical to start with probably more technical than the Olympic course.”

Pollard also said athletes only got two runs of the final course before competing.

“Unfortunately, I think seven athletes got taken to hospital. So, if it’s that unsafe and not everyone can ride it they’ve got to make changes. Unfortunately, the changes they made, made it worse. So another two athletes went down the next day, and then they changed it completely to make it safe for everyone,” he said.

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“Obviously, it’s pretty nerve wracking when you see competitors go down and really good riders as well. It was like the cream of the crop riders. So to see them go down, you know ‘well, it can happen to me’.”

Reid is one of three dual Summer and Winter Paralympians competing for Australia at the 2026 Games alongside Lauren Parker and Michael Milton. She won gold medals at the 2024 Paris and 2020 Tokyo Games in para-cycling and on Sunday, became Australia’s first Indigenous Winter Paralympian.

This masthead has travelled to Cortina as a guest of Paralympics Australia.

The Winter Paralympic Games is broadcast on the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.