BRITISH Paralympian Jo Butterfield feels back where she belongs after beating breast cancer and is targeting both the next Summer and Winter Games.

The 46-year-old finished fifth alongside Jason Kean in the wheelchair curling mixed doubles on her Winter Paralympics debut at Milan-Cortina, an experience which has strengthened her resolve to make history.

She remains a contender to become the first Briton to win gold at a Summer and Winter Paralympics after claiming the F51 club throw title at Rio 2016.

With her summer discipline restored to the Paralympic programme, Butterfield has aspirations of competing at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles and then resuming her partnership with Kean in the French Alps in 2030.

“My plan is to try and do both in the next cycle,” she told PA Sport.

“It should be [easy to balance]. I think curling are massively supportive, athletics is individual so it’s a little bit easier to fit in around the team sport. Hopefully it will work but we’ll find out.”

Butterfield turned her attention to curling in 2022 after her athletics event was pulled from the summer schedule ahead of Paris 2024.

Just a year later she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It was two years ago I got the all-clear but the two years before that if someone said to me that you would be at Milan-Cortina, I don’t know if I ever really believed it,” said Butterfield, who was left paralysed from the chest down in 2011 after undergoing surgery to remove a tumour from her spine.

“I was going day by day thinking, ‘am I even going to be here next week?’ almost, never mind at a Paralympic Games.

“You have to put things in perspective a little bit and it [fifth place] wasn’t the result we wanted but on a bigger picture, there’s been so much achievement just to be there, just to be back where I want to be.

“I don’t take that lightly.”

Butterfield and Kean, who teamed up four months ago, lost their opening two games but won three of the next four before being denied a semi-final spot by an agonising 11-10 defeat by hosts Italy.

“It was within grasp and that’s what’s really frustrating and really annoying because it’s quite an open competition,” said Butterfield.

“To be able to get that semi-final, I think we had a really good shout at getting that gold medal.

“When I started in athletics it was about trying to get a gold medal in Rio, and I was successful in that one.

“When I started in curling that was still the goal and the dream and that’s not gone away – it’s probably been more enlightened, if anything.

“Me and Jay, it’s been so special and to win it for myself is brilliant but to actually win it with him would be even more special.”

Butterfield, who hails from Doncaster but has lived in Glasgow since her university days, was supported by her wife Rhiannon at the Milan-Cortina Games.

She will celebrate her 47th birthday on Thursday, an occasion she intends to spend training.

“Me and Jason turned around to each other and said, ‘can we just go again now’?” said Butterfield.

“And I think if we went again now, the experience of the last week would probably be the difference.

“You can fast-track a lot of things but you can’t fast-track experience.

“We were a bit like rabbits in the headlights at the start, and I think that’s probably what cost us in the end.”