Not many of us have days where we reflect on having a second chance at life. We might pause on our birthday to say thanks, but mostly as a society we are reactive to our outside environment.

For one friend, this week is one of those times of reflection and it happened to fall at the same time as his world championships.

The road to the start line of these world championships began 12 years ago when 21-year-old Scott Meenagh was serving in the parachute

regiment in Afghanistan. It is safe to say that the path has not been straightforward.

It is fitting that Meenagh has been competing this week as he reflects on that day 12 years ago that changed the lives of so many. Scott was part of a recovery mission when he stood on an IED.

“In a blink of an eye everything I had ever wanted was taken from me,” he says.

A promising under 18 rugby player, it was within the parachute regiment that Meenagh would find himself thriving. And many of the traits he learned in his training helped shape the man he has become today.

What Scott describes as a rough day at work 12 years ago that left him as a double above knee amputee, was the beginning of a journey which saw him this week become the first British para athlete to win a medal at the Nordic World Championships in Sweden.

That rough day at work paved a new life for the Scotsman.

He says: “Living a good life is the best way any of us can honour the sacrifices of those who ensured we lived that day.”

It was Scott’s close friend Martin Bell who gave his life to ensure he lived that day and it is clear in how Meenagh now lives that he honours Martin every day.

Sport has not just given Scott a new purpose, though, it has also given him a family, meeting his wife on the path sport took him, and he is now a dad.

It was at Headley Court during his rehabilitation that Scott was introduced to sport and it wasn’t long until he had a vision of what his life could be.

Sport gave him more of an identity than being a former solider, and the focus of conversations became about setting sporting goals and targets and not about how he was injured.

It was during a programme jointly ran by Paralympics GB and Help for Heroes that I first met Scott.

The programme was simple, front line to start line, known as the Paralympic Inspiration Programme (PiP).

I spoke to a group of injured soldiers about sport and travelled with them to the Sochi Winter Paralympics. It was in Russia that Scott and I became closer friends as we watched Para Nordic skiing for the first time.

I think we both looked at each other and thought “why do we not have anyone doing this sport”?

Scott was hungry to pursue a career in sport, and he had all the characteristics to be a world-class athlete. It wasn’t long until he found himself on the GB Rowing Team and only narrowly missed out on the Rio Games.

However, it was on snow that he would come of age as an athlete.

In 2018 he became the first British Para Nordic Skier to represent Great Britain in the Paralympic winter games and carved a path to show it is possible to reach the top against the bigger winter nations.

With his UK sport funding cut, it would have been easy to quit, but that’s not in his DNA.

Instead, with a small team which is led by former British Biathlon athlete turned para Nordic coach Simon Allanson (who I happen to know from his days on the ski team training in Aviemore with Mike Dixon), he set out on a shoe-string budget to finish the journey he started.

It was in Majorca last December where I joined them on a training camp that I got to see what had become of this young athlete I met at Headley Court all those years ago.

He had turned himself into a world class athlete, and as I cycled alongside him I thought “this guy is going to win a medal soon”.

It was only a matter of time.

So as I awoke on a sunny morning in Jamaica to the news that Scott was a silver medallist in the 12.5km sit ski world championships I felt a tear run down my face.

Watching the team on Instagram made me so proud of what they have achieved against all the odds.