Skiing's unglamorous side

A British Ski Team racer training in Austria

By Anna Thompson Winter sports editor

Being a professional ski racer sounds like a very glamorous job.

They compete in some of the world's glitziest resorts, are adored by racing fans, and enjoy life to the full on and off the piste.

But the reality is very different - as I found out when I visited the British ski team in Austria.

The six men and three women were fine-tuning their training and fitness ahead of the start of the race season.

Downhill specialist Finlay Mickel was in another resort in Austria called Pitzal.

British Ski Team men

Alain Baxter

Noel Baxter

Ross Green

James Leuzinger

Johnny Mulder-Brown

Gareth Trayner

And the day starts early.

The team were up at 6.30am for a hearty breakfast at 7am.

Then there was a mad dash to queue for the ski lifts in sub-zero temperatures, along with other international teams, including the Croatians, Slovenians and Canadians.

There was banter in the queue with the Hintertux resort officials complaining a number of race teams had been trying to bribe them with vodka for better training positions!

When the weather is good, skiing is fantastic with the beautiful blue skies contrasting perfectly to the crisp white snow.

But when the weather is bad, it is awful.

Members of the team get ready for a training run

On my first day with the team, training had to be abandoned. Conditions were so poor, racing would have been dangerous if they had continued.

You could see the disappointment and frustration on the skiers' faces.

They had to traipse back down the mountain and had to contend with indoor fitness training instead which is monotonous at the best of times.

Skiing is renowned for its wild partying apres ski but for serious racers Saturday night means dinner, a few non-alcoholic drinks and then an early night.

There was laughing and joking among the team around the dinner tables at their base, the Tirolerhof Hotel in Lanersbach, but the fun and games were over before 10pm.

Sunday arrived and it was time to do it all over again.

This time there was no low cloud and they managed to get in a full quota of training runs under the watchful eye of team coaches Reini Fernsebner and Andreas Schernthaner.

British Ski Team women

Chemmy Alcott

Emma Carrick-Anderson

Jo Greig

But even though there was plenty of snow on the Austrian glacier, head coach Christian Schwaiger was unhappy because it was too soft for the racers.

And after a number of frantic telephone calls he announced the team would be moving immediately to a resort near the Slovenian border because the pistes there were icy and hard.

So it was back to the hotel as the skiers gathered all their clothes and bags and packed up their various skis and boots in search for the perfect conditions.

Ski racing is certainly not the alluring lifestyle it is cracked up to be.