Over the past couple of months, many British athletes have be training hard and racing in the Southern Hemisphere, gaining some fantastic results. Click here for the full article.

Happy New Year everyone! To celebrate 2011 the clever guys over at Vital have been doing some updates to the website. One of the new additions is my Snowball Fight game. See if you can knock me off the leaderboard, you never know, you might recognise some of the characters in the game!
Click here to start a snowball fight!.

At the moment I am in Austria on the Moltall Glacier training slalom and GS, conditions the day before we arrived were perfect, however I brought the fog, wind, snow and lots of it! So the conditions are very challenging but if it was a race we would have to ski in it so we train in it, and can prove vital training for when you are put in a similar situation in a race.

Over the summer we have 3 fitness tests to monitor how we are progressing. We do a bike test to test lactic levels at certain intensities on the bike, a squat test an over head squat test, stability tests and jump tests, all measuring different fitness aspects and all showing data on those areas.

My tests went really well and I have shown significant gains in all areas on this time last year especially in the strength tests, squatting 165kg and 110kg over head!

Started at the end of April, with the etape Caledonia charity bike race in mind, I started my training solely focused on the aerobic aspect of training so biking was a daily thing, with rides up to 3 hours long. On the 16th May the Team tackled the race and I managed to finish 2nd overall .30 seconds of winning out of 3000 people so a solid effort. Following this with a very good aerobic base I started to train in the gym 3 times a week (much more means you cant recover in time for the next session) as well as keeping up the cycling however the rides no longer than 1hour 30 at a mixture of intensities.

The weeks vary on intensity depending what stage of training we are at and if we are about to go skiing, so for example if we have a four week block of training we will have 2 very hard weeks in the middle and then go a little easier for the week before we go away as not to be tired for training on the snow, as at the end of the day we have to progress in skiing as our main priority! I managed to get a holiday fitted in my summer and that was a great break to recharge the batteries and come back ready to train hard again, because I must say it can start to feel like ground hog day getting up every morning, going in the gym having lunch then going on the bike then dinner and then you are so tired you just want to get to bed!

Ski training has seen us stay in Europe this year and I must say I prefer this, trekking to chile or New Zealand takes its toll on the body. We started in Kaunertal and then went to Zermatt, Saas Fee and Pitztal.

Following on from last year I took up the challenge of the Etape Caledonia 2010 cycling event for charity and managed to come a close second. Congratulations to Robert Bateman, thanks for a good race! Take a look at a couple of the articles below.
The Press and Journal - Olympians and TV stars join 4,500-strong cycle
Perthshire Advertising - Etape cycling event is a success

A big thank you to all of our supporters!

Team GB’s Dave Ryding and Andy Noble both ended their first Olympic Winter Games on a high note by climbing up the rankings to secure top-30 finishes in the slalom.
Click here to view the full story on the Team GB website.

Recently the BBC interviewed me, along with my Team GB team-mates, to build video profiles ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
Click here to see my BBC Video Profile.

I am so proud to have been picked to represent Britain in the Winter Olympics in the slalom and giant slalom disciplines. Since I was picked for the junior British training squad at 14, I have dreamed about this moment.

Team GB – Alpine skiing: Dave Ryding, Andy Noble, Ed Drake and Chemmy Alcott.
Click here to view the full story on the BOA website.

Anthony Clavane of the Sunday Mirror interviews Dave. www.mirror.co.uk/sport

Read the article from the Sunday Mirror, 3 January 2010.
Click here to view the PDF of the Article.

Another of England’s finest, Dave Ryding, has spent the summer training hard for Olympic selection, Barry Sponge caught up with Dave during a very short return to the UK.

Read the article from Snowsport England’s own magazine. Click here to view the PDF of the Article.

Off to Austria. Will keep you posted on my progress over the next few weeks.

On Saturday 10th October I was presenting prizes at the ESSKIA Finals in Rossendale. It was great to see all the teams battling it out. It bought back many memories.

Good luck to all those who qualified for the British Championships.

Saturday evening, back to home turf for a fundraiser – great night. Thanks to everyone who came, skied and helped.

I had a great experience in New Zealand and Chile. Superb snow conditions and some excellent training.

I entered a couple of races to see how my race fitness levels were and managed to pick up a podium position.

Back to England to find people had been fundraising – wow! A massive thank you to all of you that have contributed, raced, donated, bought tickets or just wished me luck.

I also presented prizes at the British Artificial Championships in Pontypool.

In May 2009 I took part in the charity Etape Caledonia, an 81 mile bike ride around the Scottish Highlands – which was quite hilly! (understatement)

With me were a few of my team members from the British Ski Squad including Chemmy Alcott. I built up to this in my training with a lot of cycling and completed the course in just under 4 hours.

We’re fundraising for MacMillan Cancer Support. It is still possible to help with the fundraising on this by clicking the just giving logo above or visit www.justgiving.com/snowsportgb.

A big thank you to all of our supporters!