And this year's event, at Hillend, attracted the attention of British Children's Ski Team head coach Gareth Trayner and his colleagues from Snowsport GB to continue in their quest to promote their new talent initiative — the 'Talent Trail'.
The s
cheme aims to identify potential skiing stars of the future by working with the British ski schools, clubs and academies to identify the up and coming talent, which will then be fed into Britain's elite training programmes.
The primary goal of the scheme is for the highly qualified coaches and instructors working in the ski schools and clubs, both in the UK and across the Alps, to talent-spot on behalf of British Alpine Ski Team, and encourage talented youngsters to start ski racing and then progress onto training programmes run by either Ski Academies in the Alps or their Home Nation Governing Body — Snowsport England, Snowsport Scotland or Snowsport Wales.
The ultimate aim is to increase the pool of talented skiers to feed into the British Alpine Ski Teams.
The Midlothian event organiser Bruce Fraser was delighted that the Talent Trail initiative was stopping by to compliment the 40th British Schools Dryslope Ski Championships, hosted by the Scottish Schools Ski Association.
Bruce said: "The Midlothian Snowsports Centre was originally established with support from George Boyd Anderson, a local benefactor.
"He wished to see how well Lothian youngsters fared in competition with young people from across the United Kingdom and instigated some invitation races for schools. These races developed into the British Schools Dry Slope Ski Championships."
The British Schools Dry Slope Ski Championships race consists of a slalom run over 400 metres using the steepest section of artificial ski slope in the United Kingdom.
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