Tributes flow for late Bibian Mentel at Beijing 2022 Paralympics: "Without her I wouldn't be here"

Bibian Mentel may have passed away in March 2021, but her legacy lives on at the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games.

Mentel dominated her sport, and she did it while fighting cancer.

The Dutch para snowboard star burned bright during a sparkling career where she won three Paralympic gold medals between Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018 - where she was 45.

A five-time World champion and a six-time Dutch national champ, Mentel is remembered as a world class athlete with an irreprensible spirit, a fierce competitor who also lifted others up and empowered a movement.

And she achieved much of that with cancer, undergoing at least five lung surgeries, two neck operations and over 125 radiation treatments, one of them just two months before the 2018 Paralympics, which saved her from paralysis from the neck down.

And she still won two gold medals.

Her achievements stretch way beyond victories on the snowboard slopes, halfpipes and slaloms: this flying Dutchwoman fought for years to have snowboard introduced as a discipline at the Winter Paralympic Games.

Campaigning and lobbying for eight years, snowboard made the Paralympic schedule in 2012 and debuted at Sochi 2014.

Now at Beijing 2022, the first Paralympic snowboard competitions without her, Bibian Mentel is still alive in the thoughts, words and memories of everyone involved, forever flickering in the spirit of the Games.

"Without her I wouldn't be here," Dutch para snowboarder Lisa Bunschoten told Olympics.com in Beijing, "she got this sport here, and I'm really thankful for that."

Bunschoten won silver at PyeongChang 2018 and shared a podium with Mentel, who claimed gold in the women's banked slalom SB-LL2 that day.

Mike Schultz on 'passionate' Bibian Mentel

USA snowboard star Mike Schultz also spoke about her impact on everyone around her.

"I knew Bibian for a few years and and like she just had a good heart and she would help anybody.

"I just remember some conversations we had and she was so inviting to talk to, and you could tell she was extremely passionate about the sport of snowboarding and involving adaptive athletes in it.

"And that's what I remember about her is how passionate she was about the sport and the athletes that were involved with it."

Chris Vos: "Bibian was my mentor... We miss her"

Chris Vos is another elite Dutch para snowboarder who says he owes it all to Mentel.

With a Paralympic silver medal to his name from PyeongChang 2018, he's on the trail of more at Beijing 2022 and also has four World Championship gold medals to his name.

"I mean, Bibian was my mentor, without Bibian I wouldn't stand here because she brought me to the races when I was a little 12-year-old kid," Vos told Olympics.com in Beijing.

"I think as a sport we miss her, and yeah, I think what I really like about what we did as a sport, when she passed away, we were on a race... it was only our second race of the year.

"We could do what she always loved to do... snowboarding, and to be able to race at the Paralympic Games when her dream was to get our sport to the Paralympics and then to do that... I think that was just really cool.

"And of course, yeah, we miss her and we would have liked that she was here and raced with us."

Bibian Mentel's legacy to transcend sport

Mentel was told that the cancer spread to her brain and treatment was no longer possible and she passed away on 29 March 2021.

“After a few wonderful weeks filled with love, removing memories and making new memories, she is now at peace,” her Mentelity Foundation published.

“I still like to take every day as a beautiful moment,” Mentel, who was 48 when she passed, said in a Dutch television interview three weeks before her death.

“That sounds cliché, but we’ve had — in the past two weeks — a lot of time to speak about everything with family and friends, and eventually you reach a point where you wonder, ‘Are there still things that need to be said?’

"And I’m happy that I have not been taken from life from one day to the next, and that I have the chance to say those last things that you want to say to each other to my family and friends. Because of that, everything has actually been said.

"Now every day is a gift.”

Mentel died as she lived, cherishing each moment and inspiring others.

“Everyone has the right to become the best version of themselves,” reads the quote on the Mentelity Foundation website, her foundation that inspires people to move and helps them find that best version.

"We show that people are capable of more than they think," continues the site.

"And in this way we not only change people's lives, but it is also our mission to make society look at people with a physical challenge differently.

"Hopefully Bibian's dream can now become your dream too."