ROWAN CHESHIRE

She became the first British female skier to win a World Cup halfpipe title with victory in Calgary in 2014. We talk to the 23-year-old about how it all started, her training regime, the pressure of competition and how it felt to compete at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games

From Staffordshire dry slope to Olympic fame

My job in a nutshell

I’m a professional freestyle skier and compete in the discipline halfpipe, which basically means I throw myself off walls of ice and do tricks for a living. 

How it all began

We used to pass our local dry ski slope in Stoke-on-Trent all of the time, so one weekend – when I was 10 years old – my dad decided to take me and my siblings down for a lesson. We fell in love with it and soon signed up for junior freestyle sessions. I have been hooked ever since. I would ski whenever I could and caught the attention of freestyle coach Pat Sharples. When I was age 14, I went to train at the Salomon Grom Camps [run by Sharples] and went on to compete at the British Championships in Laax, Switzerland, winning my age category. Seven years later I was on my way to the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang. 

My typical day

The alarm usually goes off about 6.30am and I’m having breakfast at 6.45, usually oats with almond milk, honey, nuts and banana. After that I head up the mountain for training. This involves a couple of on-piste warm-up runs, then we build up our tricks in the halfpipe and work on our comp runs. 

I stop at about midday for lunch – usually a snack or sandwich – and then continue training at 12.30pm. The afternoon session involves a few more runs in the pipe or some technical piste runs, and depending on how I feel I might do a couple more hours then head down the hill. 

The training doesn’t finish then though. At 4pm I head to the gym where I do a recovery session and a lightweight session, and work up an appetite for dinner at 6-7pm. A typical pre-competition meal would be pasta with chicken, spinach and tomato sauce. After dinner I wind down and relax by reading or watching a TV series, ready for bed around 10pm. 

Highlight of my career so far

The Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang. I placed seventh in the ski halfpipe. It was an amazing experience. My favourite part was being around so many incredible and inspirational people, and also my parents being there to support me definitely made the experience so much better. I didn’t really get a culture shock as I’d been to Korea a few times before, so I was pretty comfortable being in PyeongChang. The athlete village and the accommodation were unfamiliar, but the team made the place super cosy for us.

What I love most about my job...

Is getting to travel to such amazing places and meet awesome people. I’ve had the chance to see places I never would have without skiing, such as going to Russia, and little towns and ski villages in the middle of nowhere. I also love meeting the people who live in these places and experiencing their culture – it is something I’ll cherish for life. 

The hardest part is…

The mental game of competing and dealing with pressure. It’s just as much a mental game as it is physical. If your head is not in it you’re going to have a bad day, and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself.

If I had to choose one place to ski for the rest of my life…

It would be Whistler in Canada, because the mountains are beautiful and the skiing is excellent. Also the town has so much character and lots of activities to do.

My future plans

Hopefully I will compete in another Olympics, and I’d also like to go to university – perhaps to study marketing – and finish my education.

Throwing yourself off walls of ice for a living? All in a day's work for Rowan