Dave Ryding’s Olympic ride is over and the Rocket is already aiming at a legacy mission to ensure skiing isn’t just a sport for rich kids.
The 35-year-old trailblazer finished 13th in his fourth Olympic slalom, 0.78 seconds shy of the medal he coveted.
Son of a gas engineer and a hairdresser, Ryding now wants to make his sport more accessible.
Reports last year claimed that GB Snowsport charge athletes up to £33,000 to join their programme.
The cost of ski lift tickets is also high and rising with resorts struggling due to Covid, promising to make an expensive sport impractical for many.
“We need to make it easier in the lower levels to get on snow more often,” Ryding said.
“I had a pathway that was accessible and affordable and I’d like to bring that back a bit more. It’s something I would like to go into and develop myself.
“If it’s affordable you can keep more people in the sport, it’s that simple. We need to capitalise on what happened in Kitzbuhel as a sport to make it as good as we can for the next generation.”
He couldn’t make it count at the Games but Ryding can reflect on his best-ever season, illuminated by maiden World Cup gold at the 97th attempt and Britain’s first in 55 years.
Last summer the Pendle star formed an all-British training group with Laurie Taylor and Billy Major, who failed to finish despite an excellent start on Olympic debut here.
Ryding, who seems to have a manifesto prepared for the future of British skiing, believes the sport needs such pockets of excellence to progress.
“We used to group all the good 16-year-olds together and I would like us to start doing that again,” said Ryding.
“I think that is powerful as you can develop competition, push yourself and that is what happened with me, Billy and Laurie. Every day they were right there with me and pushing me.”
A few of the next generation gathered at Ryding’s first club to watch his race in the early hours of the morning.
One of them is Charlotte Holmes, 16, a GB Snowsport academy athlete from the local area.
“Dave comes up quite regularly to talk to us,” said Holmes. “He’s so friendly and helpful.
“What he’s done is so inspiring. We now know that a skier from Pendle dry slope can compete with the best in the world.”
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