ATHLETES TO WATCH
You've got to have grit.
You've got to have determination.
Most people think I am crazy
but I put my life, except for my girlfriend,
on complete hold and said,
"You know what, I'm just going to do this.
And if I'm 30 years old and come out of this with nothing,
then I'm willing to do that."
Here goes the rocket!
Too many people give up too early.
They are good when they're young, then it gets tough,
then they don't have the Northern Grit that I've got.
If you want to be the best at something,
you have to go all in.
DAVE RYDING
I live in the northwest of England,
45 minutes north of Liverpool.
Generally quite flat except we do have a few hills.
My parents, or especially my dad, was a keen skier.
We used to go on one holiday a year
and it happened to be skiing to the French Alps.
We couldn't afford for them to have the lessons all the time,
so we thought, "Well, if we take them to Pendle,
get some lessons, they can join us on the holiday."
And that's how it all started.
There's a dry ski slope there.
It's about 130 meters long.
Plastic bristles, very sore if you fall over on them.
Probably like skiing on a yard brush,
you know, a full slope of yard brushes.
The main difference is it's plastic
and it's maximum 12 seconds long if you're lucky.
It's not a winter sport in England, it's a summer sport.
And you can race every single weekend if you want to.
It's like a World Cup tour, but on a dry ski slope.
And obviously only the Brits really do it.
Do you remember doing your first few races here,
after the slope was extended?
It gave us an extra two or three seconds,
which doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a lot,
compared to what it used to be.
The view never changed
and still as beautiful as ever up here.
My mom and dad every weekend would drive me.
We'd camp because it was cheaper and it was fun to camp.
So we'd go and pitch up and have like a weekend
and one would do the cooking and Carl
he doesn't cook, so he had to do the washing up.
I remember when I first started going onto the snow
when I was like 13,
I did a ski camp in Norway
and then it was like, "Wow, this is a bit different."
As a coach, I first met him in 2009.
He was between FIS and European Cup level
and needed to make that jump.
What I saw from his very first days with me
was his passion to work,
and he would do anything to make me a better skier.
Yeah, we went sort of an all-in approach.
Him and Tristan, it was like a two-man band.
Out in Europe on their own.
And it must have been so tough for them.
We must have spent 300 days a year sometimes together,
I would sleep on his living room floor.
You know, there was a small amount of money
and we just had to make that stretch
as much as possible.
I won the Europa Cup title in 2013, and the next year
I didn't score any World Cup points,
so I don't know if I'm the first guy ever to do that.
But when you're wanting to make the step, I didn't.
If anything, I went back a little bit.
To make the step up to the next level,
we needed to address some technical errors.
Tristan, he just said, right, we're going to an indoor hall.
We are going for three weeks
and we're just going to work on this thing.
Because my technique on my right foot turn
was better than my left.
We'd go in at say midday,
do an hour, come out, watch it on the video.
Yeah, what are you seeing in there?
Well, I've got to come out the turn on the ski
and hit the left ski.
It was just repetition and an obsession to get better.
We did do four, five hours, six hours some days.
You could hear people talking about, "Are you crazy?"
Because they would come for three days and be like,
"Oh, this is way enough."
Yeah, definitely not fashionable.
It's not like the Alps.
But when you really commit to something,
you get a different feeling.
You know, you get a real kick out of it.
Ready to rumble!
There's plenty of fans out there.
Kitzbühel was nuts.
It was an amazing moment.
Can Dave Ryding show Austria how it's done?
When I was leading the first run, I was like,
"I'm in the deep end here."
Well, obviously it was the first time I was ever winning,
and I just remember thinking,
these are the exact same emotions
that I had when I was leading
my first big race on the dry ski slope.
It's now just a much bigger setting
and much more people watching.
But the emotions were the same, so I could deal with them.
Come on Dave, keep it up man!
I just never lost focus on getting to the finish.
That's all I wanted to do
and then I crossed the line and then saw number two.
And that was like a victory for me.
Ryding!
He's on the podium!
It changed who I was,
the perception over myself as a ski racer.
British skiing is back on the map
and it's a lad from Lancashire
that has done it!
I remember going up to do some freeskiing
the next day in Austria,
and I just got mobbed and I was like, "Wow, this is crazy."
It was just like overnight, like everyone.
If you go out for dinner, everyone wanted a photo.
So it definitely changed.
OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES PYEONGCHANG 2018
The Olympics is definitely different to a normal race.
Britain takes notice. Like everyone watches.
So you feel like it is the pinnacle.
This is it.
I remember getting to the start gate
and just the nerves just went boom.
There is Ryding waiting to go.
I was in a good position after the first run.
I was in about 13th just after the TV break
and I thought, you know what?
I was only half a second off the podium.
I thought:, "Right now it's on.
This is perfect. Just go for it!"
This is what he learned to do
on the dry ski slopes back home in England.
Ryding has the British fans on their feet.
I skied well,
I just made a couple of small errors which cost me.
I moved up to ninth,
about four-tenths off the podium.
Another huge step in the right direction.
It's been a long journey.
It's amazing for somebody
against the rest of the world,
to come from somewhere like this.
We heard from other English skiers, who skied on snow,
that Dave was just a dry slope skier
or skied on plastic, but he certainly showed them
what it takes.
My expectations for Beijing 2022
are to show the world the very best Dave Ryding I can.
And if that's enough to get on the podium, then superb.
But I just want to put out a performance that I'm proud of
and that I know will make the rest of Britain proud to watch.
And if I can be part of that, then that will be special.
Hopefully, once I finish the joking around on the snow,
I'll come back here and give it another go.
I keep saying I will,
but the proof is in the pudding in a few years, I think!