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The Evolution of Skiing Starts Here!

It’s the 25th July 2012 and the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, with temperatures pushing in excess of 30 degrees centigrade. Inside The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead, it’s a different story though, as I caught up with the coaches and pupils from Team Evolution, the UK’s top private training academy for junior ski racers.

I’d come along to take a look at the events taking place over a 4 day period at Hemel, where over 45 skiers, mostly juniors from age 7 upwards, were taking part in some serious race training programs with some of the UK’s top coaches. It was exciting to watch all the kids with their racing skis looking forward to getting on some snow, but first it was outside and time for a proper warm up. Yannick Green, Communications Director at Team Evolution, explained to me that the program was not just about skiing through slalom gates, but designed to provide an all-round approach that supported all the skills required for athletic skiing.

Team Evolution Ski Racers

Once everyone had completed their various skills warm up modules (I stood and watched whilst they all ran around, jumped over things, caught stuff and skipped about), it was back to the slope and onto the snow.

An array of talented skiers, including Ed Drake (British Alpine Men Olympic Team), Sega Fairweather (British Alpine Women Team) and Sally Bartlett (Managing Director at Ski Bartletts) are employed to help deliver a really top class program for both boys and girls. The course runs over 4 whole days and costs a total of £190, including slope access, which seemed pretty good value for money to me. For years, talented skiers from the UK have struggled to get a decent structure to their coaching regime and although there are many fantastic ski clubs all over the country, the chance to bring skiers from different clubs all together for a week like this can only help them improve their own chances of success in the future.

Paul Telling, Director of Team Evolution, spoke passionately about his own experiences with ski racing. His vision for Team Evolution, to create a programme that fulfils the need for a structured route that young British athletes can follow, from being talented skiers to fully-fledged Olympic athletes, is built on a first hand understanding of the struggles many British athletes face. Getting to that next stage in the competitive arena is sometimes a leap too far and there seems to have been a lack of support in the past for all those athletes that had an ability, but no structure.

Junior Ski Racer

The Team Evolution academy base is established in St Johann, in the Salzburg region of Austria. With a combined school education system and a ski training program, children from the age of 10 years will get to ski for around 20 weeks a year. Although the skiing is obviously taken very seriously, the schooling does not come in second best, and so far 90% of the children attending the academy have found their grades improving from before they started. The focus on ensuring that the kids come away with good qualifications is a crucial element in the overall target for the staff, parents and pupils.

I managed to get a few turns in myself, which in the middle of summer is a rarity, but enjoyable all the same. I didn’t try and keep up with the kids though, they all looked well on their way to Olympic glory…London 2022 winter Olympics? Now that would be some evolution!