Top UK U21 skier, Chepstow's Andy Davies looks to build on success (From Free Press Series)

Top UK U21 skier, Chepstow's Andy Davies looks to build on success

10:40am Friday 26th October 2012 in Sport

A CHEPSTOW ski racer is Britain’s top under-21 skier.

Andy Davies, 20, has just earned himself the under-21 number one ranking in Britain on the artificial ski slopes.

This is the latest in a long line of accolades for Mr Davies who has just enjoyed his most successful season to date.

Mr Davies first tried skiing at ten months old, inspired by his parents who are also keen skiiers, and began racing at the age of ten.

The former Wyedean School pupil has had a fantastic season, adding the British, Scottish and Welsh National Under 21 titles to his list of achievements, as well as winning the seasonlong GBR Race Series at under-21 level.

Mr Davies, who is studying computer science at Southampton University, has won a number of races outright this year, and in his words, leads his university team to “utter domination”.

He was second in the British Universities Championships in Edinburgh last year, and next month wants to finish the domestic season by going one better.

He is a member of the British Universities’ ATeam, as well as skiing for Wales regularly.

He said: “I am going to keep training hard in the gym and on the artificial slopes to get myself in the best possible shape this winter.”

Aside from his ambitions on snow he is determined to become overall British Number One next year, and win the British Championships outright – a feat he missed this year by six hundredths of a second.

His dad, Rob, said: “Andy has worked incredibly hard, and this is real reward for all his hard work over the past few seasons.

He has set his sights on competing in the World University Winter Games in Trentino, Italy, in 2013, but unfortunately he needs extra funding to enable him to qualify.”

Mr Davies is grateful to Chepstow company Dendix for their sponsorship, but even with this support he is a long way short of the resources needed to be able to train and compete sufficiently on snow to improve his World Ranking points .

● If you would like to sponsor him e-mail his father Rob on robertldavies@ sky.com