As a 4 x Winter Olympian, a career high ranking of 8th in the World, 7 x British National Overall Champion and the only British female skier to ever win a run in a World Cup, Chemmy Alcott is widely regarded as one of Britain’s greatest ever skiers.
In a time when competing at a Winter Olympics was unusual for a British athlete, Chemmy defied the odds and pioneered a skiing movement that has inspired a generation. Resulting in not just skiers, but British Winter Sport athletes as a whole seeing the Winter Olympics as a realistic and achievable goal.
Since retiring from competing on the world stage after The Sochi Olympics in 2014, Chemmy has immersed herself in the world of TV & media, where commentates on the World Cup Ski Series for Eurosport amongst being a guest on many other shows. Furthermore, she competed in ITV Dancing on Ice in 2012, where she finished 5th.
Most recently, she became one of the lead presenters of Ski Sunday, alongside Ed Leigh.
We talk about her childhood, her racing career highs and lows, her struggles with motherhood in the early days and trying to juggle it with a blossoming presenting career.
The lows from severe injury, from losing her mum very suddenly and most recently, from online abuse at the hand of cowardly, anonymous trolls, have given Chemmy a fairly thick skin and a resilience she shouldn’t need to have.
It has, however, stood her in good stead and combined with her 96mph skiing and her 100mph personality, she is inspiring young women to give their all to whatever it is they are passionate about. To really care and to not be embarrassed about caring about goals and dreams and drive.
Her new challenge has her ski touring and climbing up three 4000m peaks in Switzerland as part of an initiative by My Switzerland to encourage all women teams to climb all 48 of them between 8th March and 8th September. More info here: https://peakchallenge.myswitzerland.com/en/
You can follow Chemmy in the following places:
IG: @chemmyski
Twitter: @chemmyski (BE NICE!)