British 13-year-old pulls off wheelchair backflip after six hours of attempts

Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A British 13-year-old has become the first female athlete in Europe to pull off a wheelchair backflip after six hours of attempts.

WCMX athlete Lily Rice, 13, of Pembrokeshire, Wales, was filmed at a Cardiff practice facility falling on her face repeatedly before successfully pulling off the backflip on a ramp.

Rice is only the second female athlete to pull off a wheelchair backflip, and the first to do so in Europe.

"I'd seen lots of people do it and it didn't look too hard, so I wanted to try it out," she told the BBC. "So we found a foam pit and I just practiced it and practiced it and eventually got it in the foam pit. Then, I tried it onto [the] ramp and I landed it there."

Rice said she is now aiming to show off her skills next year at the Wheelchair Motocross Championship in California. She would be the first British athlete to compete.

Rice, a former Paralympic swimmer, has a condition called hereditary spastic paraplegia, which causes the muscles in her lower body to be rigid and tight.