At just 13 years of age, Abby Kane is the youngest athlete competing for team GB in the Paralympics.
But the Scottish swimming star from Largs has shown some of the world's top swimmers that age is only a number, taking silver in the women's 100m backstroke S13.
The Largs Academy pupil, who suffers from Stargardt disease, a condition that leads to progressive vision deterioration, could not contain her excitement after securing the medal on Saturday evening.
Read more: Andy Murray puts body on his line for Britain on independence referendum day
“I don’t know how I feel, I’m speechless, I’m so happy,” she said. “I never expected to come to Rio at all, so I’m really happy. It’s been really good to be part of the ParalympicsGB team. It’s been amazing, a great experience.”
Kane, whose coach Sharon McIntyre had threatened to quit if she didn’t return from Rio with a medal, began swimming when she was just seven and has endured a two-hour round trip every morning before school to train at Barrhead Pool in East Renfrewshire.
Her efforts paid off in Rio as she equalled the Paralympic record for the event in the final, as well as taking second place.
Sportscotland Chief Executive, Stewart Harris, said: “That was an outstanding swim from Abby to take the silver medal in her first ever Paralympics.
“In qualifying for this final Abby shaved two seconds from her PB and equalled the Paralympic record for this event, a record that was set in 2008 when Abby was only five years old.
Read more: Andy Murray puts body on his line for Britain on independence referendum day
"This was a world-class performance from a very exciting prospect and it took a new Paralympic record to beat her."
He added that he hoped the schoolgirl's performance would encourage other youngsters to get involved in sport.
"There are children and young people watching these Games and taking inspiration from the performances of their favourite athletes, encouraging them to aspire to be the best that they can be," he said.
"For the pupils at Largs Academy they will now have a Paralympic medallist in their midst, it really doesn’t get more inspiring than that.”
In the lead up to the Games, Kane's classmates and school got fully behind her, with displays around the Ayrshire school dedicated to cheering her on.
The secondary school also set up a special projector screen in the Assembly Hall to cheer on the pupil in her debut swim.
Read more: Andy Murray puts body on his line for Britain on independence referendum day
Head teacher Heather Burns said: "We are absolutely over the moon about Abby. We have a lovely display in our English department corridor with posters and good wishes for Abby. The PE department also has posters, and we have been updating the school children every day about Abby's progress - there is a great feeling throughout the school.
"We are all so, so proud of her, it is actually very emotional watching Abby taking on the world."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here