Dave Ryding from Chorley became a World Cup gold medalist as a 35-year-old in January 2022, conquering the most prestigious race of them all: Kitzbuhel in Austria.
His story is already remarkable given that he learned to ski on a dry slope in Lancashire, only beginning his snow career when he was 12 years old.
But what makes the story even more special is that his grandparents came out of retirement to run a ski shop in the early 2000s to help Dave and his sister Joanna with their skiing.
Gary Ryding, 84, a former representative for a heating company based in St Helens and Muriel Ryding, 83, a retired headmistress of a Blackpool grammar school, started Ski Racing Supplies, which still lives on under new management to this day.
The shop allowed them to give Dave free skis and other equipment that he needed.
The pair built a shed in their garden in Bretherton, just outside Chorley, to store their stock in 2004 and ran the shop online, continuing to sell tools at races across the country.
A couple of years later, they expanded by buying a second-hand van and selling equipment from it at dry slope races while Dave and Joanna were competing.
Speaking to The Gazette, Gary said: “It was about 2000, we were playing about with Ski Racing Supplies a bit before I retired, when we were taking David and Joanna to various races up and down the country.
“We started selling a bit of wax that Carl [Dave’s dad] was making and we just carried it on, he had a box with ski tools in and then when I retired, it built up to a different job.
“It didn’t really fund him because his parents were doing that. What it did do was provide him with equipment.”
Dave made his Olympic debut in Vancouver in 2010 and emerged as the lead skier in the Team GB squad.
Two years later, Gary and Muriel sold Ski Racing Supplies to Pete Cutler and his partner Michelle who have a shop outside their home in Sheffield, which has now been taken over by his stepson, Olly.
The shop still travels around the dry slope circuit and supports many up-and-coming racers who are looking to follow in Dave’s footsteps.
“I think it’s great that Ski Racing Supplies lives on. The people that took it on have advanced it from what it was,” said Gary.
“They’re moving about the country and now they’re operating on a bigger scale. They do more domestic stuff as well.”
So, with Gary and Muriel officially retired, they were able to put their feet up knowing that they had done all they could to support Dave and continued to support him through the television screen.
They got to witness him break history last year when he became the first Briton to ever win an Alpine World Cup event.
Not only did Dave win a race, but he did it down the Monaco Grand Prix of ski racing: the Streif piste in Kitzbuhel, it’s the event which brings in the most fans and receives the most coverage.
“It was phenomenal, it really was unbelievable,” said Gary.
“We never thought as we were helping him that he would ever get to that sort of level.
“He was just an ordinary lad. he wasn’t high flying and there wasn’t big money to support him.”
Funding has become a wider issue in British ski racing recently, after it was announced last summer that Team GB’s alpine squad’s funding was being cut by £800,000.
Speaking on the matter, Gary said: “It has really gone back to what it was. There was no money when Dave started off, and there was just him and his coach.
“They were travelling all over the place with the van. He had no technician, just Dave and Tristan Glasse-Davies [Dave’s coach], and they were having to survive. That’s why it was very special for people to have supported him because there was no money back then.
“When Dave was 17, he got into the England Junior team. That was run at a cost, and Muriel became manager of that because nobody would run it and we were running a business at the same time.”
Despite upcoming prospects in British skiing, such as Billy Major and Laurie Taylor, Gary believes his grandson is “still the best one we have got.”
Words Jack Feneley