A Season of British Success on the Snow

First up is James 'Woodsy' Woods, the 21 year old froma Sheffield who has quite literally taken the worlds of slopestyle and freestyle skiing by storm this winter. Woodsy exploded onto the scene this year and kicked off the season with back to back wins in both ski slopestyle World Cups in Argentina and Colorado. He then followed that up by picking up his second X Games medal in Aspen in January before claiming Britain's first medal in 20 years at last weekend's Freestyle World Championships in Voss, Norway. With just over a week to go until the X Games in Tignes, Woodsy's score of 91.2 in the final in Voss won him a silver medal and ensured he retained his number one overall ranking in the event. In an incredibly short period, Woodsy has become a worldwide slopestyle star and a genuine contender for gold at next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi. Not half bad for a kid who grew up skiing on a dry slope....

Another skier making a big impact in the world of freestyle skiing is Woodsy's training partner - 17 year old Katie Summerhayes. Like Woodsy, Katie hails from Sheffield, has already qualified for the upcoming Winter Olympics and has been making a real name for herself in the world of freestyle skiing. In February Katie became the first British female skier in 19 years to make a World Cup podim, picking up silver in the slopestyle competition in Switzerland. What makes her achievement even more impressive is that this was Katie's first event back after suffering a serious knee injury last year.

The Alpine skiing world has also witnessed an incredible achievement by a Brit in 2012/2013. Last week Dave Ryding won the 2013 Europa Cup Championship after finishing 9th in the slalom in Slovenia. Ryding has had an amazing season, finishing in the top five of seven occasions, three of which on the podium. Dave 'The Rocket' Ryding is a 26 year old slalom and giant slalom skier from Lancashire and like Woodsy and Katie, started out on a local dryslope when he was just 6 years old. 20 years on and he's the 2013 winner of the Europa Cup and on the verge of making a name for himself on the World Cup circuit before Sochi in 2014.

British snowboarders have also had an eyebrow raisingly impressive season this year. 23 year old Billy Morgan from Southampton has really made his mark on the slopestyle world this season when he became the first home winner of the London Freeze big air competition held back in October at the Battersea Power Station. He has since followed this up with some pretty impressive results, finishing 4th in the FIS Snowboard World Championships in Canada back and 5th in the equivalent event in Colorado. He also landed his first backside triple cork 1440 back in February and all evidence suggests he is definitely a contender for a podium finish if he gets to the Winter Olympics next year. If all goes to plan, he hopefully will be joined by Jamie Nicholls, Ben Kilner, Dom Harington, Aimee Fuller, Zoe Gillings and Jenny Jones on the plane to Sochi.

There have also been impressive results for Scottish cross country skier Andrew Musgrave, Youth Alpine Skier Charlie Raposo, and CIT skier Nick Moynihan.

Whilst UK Sport have more than doubled funding from £5.8m for Vancouver 2010 to £13m for the Sochi campaign, compared to the £276m invested in their Summer Olympian counterparts for Rio 2016, British winter sports athletes really do fantastically well on the global stage all things considered.

A huge well done to all of our skiers and snowboarders this year - we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for more success and medals in 2014.