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The world’s first ski club started in St Anton in 1901, so it’s a fitting place to try to learn to ski in just three days.

As I sit in the Intersport shop in St. Anton trying to get my feet into impossibly heavy ski boots, I’m asking myself why did I ever volunteer for this?  I’ve managed to reach the ripe age of 57 avoiding anything to do with skis, skates and snow boarding and now, here I am, the guinea pig of a crack brain scheme to prove that anyone can learn to ski in three days. Even me, who’s a complete novice and never been a high achiever in anything vaguely sportive, should be able to do it. Worse, in three days time we’re meant to strut our stuff in front of thousands of people, on the competition slope. It can’t possibly work.

Interski, the global ski instructors’ congress is taking place in the town and we’re a group of European journalists from Russia, Holland, Denmark, Italy and the Czech Republic with me flying the British flag. We’re all never meant to have been on skis before, but I get the sense that the others have certainly had a brush with the snow in the past. That’s my explanation for why, on the first day, everyone else seems to be sailing down the slopes in no time, while I can’t even manage to stay upright for a second. I’ve even got my own personal coach who’s told me the previous night that he get anyone skiing in a couple of hours - but it doesn’t seem to work for me. 

 

We try different ski boots, different skis, really a case of a bad workman blaming the tools, but I’m completely hopeless. Staying static on the side of the hill is a major challenge and I keep finding myself sliding backwards, out of control. And no one has warned me that getting on and off ski lifts is a major hazard. They have to keep shutting them down every time I collapse into the snow, much to the frustration of the other skiers. Heinz, my coach, is in a state of complete despair. Nothing he tries seems to work and we have to admit defeat and call it a day.

That night, in the hotel, I can hardly walk and am so exhausted I can’t even think about what lies ahead.  In the morning I have huge trepidation, the nightmare is about to begin again, I just want to go home. But there’s been much whispering behind the scenes and I’m issued with a new coach – Franz who specialises in nursing British lame ducks. I almost want to cry as I confess how hopeless it all is, but he’s seen it all before. He takes away my sticks and gets me to put my hands on my knees and lean forward. I don’t believe this can work – don’t you need the poles for balance? But of course he’s right and I’m soon negotiating a gentle slalom track with relative ease. It’s not all perfect, however, and suddenly I can't turn and smash into the marking flags, cracking the poles in half, and ending up in a heap in the snow. Bang goes my new found confidence...

 

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It turns out that this is only a temporary setback and soon I'm slaloming like a seasoned skiier. The next thing to tackle is my fear of lifts and, again, I soon learn to trust my balance and let go at the right time and even manage to come to a stop. Control is what I’ve been missing and I begin to assume some sense of mastery of my limbs again. There are still moments of panic, however, and I regress back to my lame duck status when he hands me back the poles and I can’t even manage a gentle gradient. But at least there’s been progress of a sort and I haven’t broken any bones.

 

Day three and this afternoon there’s a press conference scheduled where we have to show what we’ve learnt to fellow journalists. I’m now fairly confident but ever so tired, so after a couple of hours in the morning I’m ready to call it a day and I still haven’t mastered those pesky poles. The rest of the group have made great progress and they join me for lunch, a couple of them still shaking from the slope they’ve just tackled. They’ve been rehearsing their routine for this afternoon’s big demonstration but I’ve secretly decided I’m not going to join them. I can hide behind my Britishness, after all everyone remembers Eddie the Eagle…

Outside the main stadium, I wait at the bottom of the competition slope with the assembled TV crews, photographers and reporters. Cue the music and my fellow journalists make perfect arcs down the piste, in single file, almost in slow motion.  Even I feel proud and it’s a perfect demonstration of what can be achieved in three days unless you’re a slow starter like me. The organisers hail the progress from zero to hero as nothing if not spectacular and I even get to bask in the glory since I’ve wearing an identical ski jacket to my body double who was leading the group. I do TV interviews and make a grateful speech of thanks to the major and assembled dignitaries. And actually I don’t feel like such a fake, since the next day I do actually manage to ski down the demo slope. The fact that I fall over twice doesn’t really matter – I’ve learned to ski in three and a half days – the organisers were almost right.

 

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