“YOU only get nine lives and I think I’ve used up eight-and-a-half of mine,” said Wallyford’s Micky Yule as he became the first para-athlete to take on the fastest skeleton track in the world.

Filmed for TV, elite powerlifter Micky swapped his weights rack for a super-charged sled as he took on world champion Martins Dukurs at Whistler, Canada.

The race, broadcast as part of the build-up to this month’s Winter Olympics, was shot after Micky competed for Team GB at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games.

The former army staff sergeant, who lost both legs below the knee to an improvised explosive device (IED) while serving in Afghanistan eight years ago, told the Courier that he initially got involved as he “was bored” after competing at Rio.

He said: “I’m always hunting for the buzz I got from being with the boys in Afghanistan. I get it from the powerlifting and training, but I definitely got it from this!”

Micky was taken to a training camp in Austria where he familiarised himself with the sport and met the team that would help him.

A new sled was created for the 39-year-old, who explained: “I am completely the wrong shape for stuff like that. You need to be tall and slim, not a wee fat guy like me. I was too wide.”

After he completed his training, attention turned to taking on Whistler, recognised as the fastest skeleton course on the planet.

“We were driving up to it and I just could not believe the size of it,” said Micky. “I stood at the top and they were saying ‘Micky, you are going to go down that’, and I just thought: ‘Aye, right!’”

To take on Dukurs, Micky’s team enlisted some help. . . in the form of two ‘rockets’ made by an engineer from the Williams Formula 1 team and attached to Micky’s legs for the challenge.

He said: “They gave me the same power as a 125cc motorbike down the course.

When we did the first practice run in front of Dukurs they filmed him and when he heard the noise and saw me flying down the course his reaction was priceless!”

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Commonwealth Games-bound Micky, who now lives south of the Border, revealed there were some scary moments as he reached speeds of more than 100mph.

“At one point I took a corner too fast and I smashed my head off the ice,” he said. “I had a GoPro [camera] on my helmet and it was absolutely destroyed – on the video you can see that my coach is thinking I’ve killed myself.

“After the first practice run we had to hide the health and safety guy’s crampons to make sure he didn’t stop me from going in the race! He was going mad.”

While Micky admitted to having doubts – “I had never done a winter sport before, and I knew the skeleton was the most dangerous of all” – he admitted it was “great fun” taking on Latvian Dukurs.

“We had to do a meet and greet and we held each other’s hand a split second longer,” he said.

“He really meant that handshake and I quite liked that because it was a proper race, not just for a television show.”

While Dukurs came out on top, Micky, who has family in Wallyford and Whitecraig, insists he has a claim to victory, adding: “I got the faster time. I had two rockets attached to me right enough but I’m claiming that I am the fastest man in skeleton in the world!”

Micky was pleased to be back home in Lincoln with wife Jodie, 10-year-old son Charlie and two-year-old daughter Tilly. He is currently in training for the Commonwealth Games in Australia later this year, where he will compete for Scotland in power-lifting.

Micky, whose family still live in Wallyford, under went osseo-integration surgery last December, where part of his femur bones were drilled out and replaced with titanium rods which connect to his prosthetics.

He revealed that did not quite go to plan when, three days before Christmas, he collapsed at home and spent two weeks in hospital after breaking his femur.

But he insists he is on the road to recovery and has set himself the target of returning from Australia with a gold medal.

Slider: Ice Warrior Challenge premiered on the Quest channel on Wednesday and will be shown again on the Discovery Channel at 7.30pm this Sunday.