Help Tia chase her Olympic ski racing dreams

Hello my name is Tia lily Freshwater.

I was born in Scotland near Aviemore and grew up skiing and doing all things outdoors in the Scottish highlands. It is my ambition to represent Great Britain in ski racing and perhaps one day compete each week on the world cup circuit and follow in the footsteps of the current British Alpine team. A team that has just finished its most successful year to date proving that with hard work and a little support even a non alpine nation like Great Britain can regularly finish on the podium at international events. I am asking for your help so that I can continue to defy norms, break barriers and continue to chase my dreams for British success in Alpine Skiing.

I am currently standing up to one of the toughest challenges to date. Despite all the success at a world cup level in Alpine skiing UK Sport have heavily reduced the team funding to a point that anyone like me below world cup level has no help whatsoever.

A little about me.

I was introduced to skiing by our ski instructor dad at first when he was working in Canada. I first put skis on age 18months there in 2010. However back home in Scotland it became clear the options to train were limited and in 2013 we decided to move to the alps and to allow us to train on a more guaranteed basis. We now live and train in the Porte du soleil ski area near La Chapelle D’abondance. We also stay in touch with our old ski club (Alpine Training Centre) and join them for camps in the school holidays in Europe if we can.

What I do

Myself and my brother and sister joined the local ski club here and have fought our way to the top of the pile on many occasions. This has taken a few years and a few tears! We now need to look beyond this bigger pond and start thinking about International competitions as next year I will race internationally. There is no pathway down from the top within Alpine skiing now in the UK. Currently only our 3 World cup athletes are on a funded program.We need to bridge the gap between now and when we might conceivably gain selection to the national team. That has to happen realistically in the next 5 years.

So far I have existed in the French system but as I am not born french I cannot continue in this system as i turn 16 and race internationally. I'm doing 75days a year approximately and attend 20 competitions.

This is normally made up with 3 days a week, Wed,Sat,Sun with the ski club (Total 30 days)

Extra pre season camps that I go to with the chablais ski team( The best boys and girls from our district in France) before our local resorts have enough snow to open (Total 24 days)

Extra days with ski club during holidays or if Dad has a day free from working (Total 20days)

This approach has been quite successful in the last year and I ended the season with 3 top 10 finishes at the french championships including a 3rd in Slalom which was a highlight for me.

In the next 5 years we need to push those numbers up to 130 days a year and 40 competitions to be matching what our competition is doing. Next year I will need to attend all the big UK run international events. We have only attended a couple of times as we have not been able to due to funding choosing to race closer to home in our region. However when i have attended last time as an U14 i won 2 of the 3 events at the Nationals.

I will start international racing this year with the ski academy Apex2100 this will give me a world class programme to follow so that I can be the best I can be. They will help me to hit those targets of ski days and competitions. I am looking to raise funds to help pay my fees for this programme.

I hope you believe in my passion and commitment to my sport. No matter how great or small I am very appreciative of any donations that will be gratefully received.

Thank you

Tia Freshwater