2026 Winter Olympics: Dave Riding finished 17th in the slalom at the final games

When asked about Riding as a child, his mother, father and grandparents said the same thing: He never stopped.

But there had to be competition.

“If two snails were going up a wall, he would bet that one of them would go up first,” his grandmother Muriel told Ski Sunday.

He participated in all kinds of sports but it was not until he was eight that he started skiing, not in the mountains, but on the dry slope of the Pendle Ski Club.

It became his playground. He didn’t do much snow training until he was 13, although he continued to race on plastic until his early 20s.

Riding made a late breakthrough to the sport’s highest stage, earning his first World Cup points just weeks before his 26th birthday and not adding any more points until two years later.

He continued his journey, making three podium finishes before reaping the rewards of his perseverance and resilience in 2022 when, at 35, he became the first Briton and the oldest skier to win World Cup gold in slalom with his victory in Kitzbühel.

“It was amazing to watch his journey, and every time he did something, it was amazing,” said his wife Mandy, a former Dutch skater.

“Skiing in Great Britain, without any mountains, it was strange. First it was winning the European Cup, then he started getting top 30 World Cup finishes, World Cup podiums, and then actually winning one.

“Even people who were on the World Cup Tour were saying: How can this be possible? It started on the dry slopes. It’s out of this world.”

What Riding attributes to the longevity of his career may come as a surprise – he once ran a café in Tarleton with Mandy.

Dedicating his life to slalom racing had turned his mind to “cauliflower” but the “real world” had proven to him that the grass was not necessarily greener.

“I realized what I was doing was really good,” he said. “You ignited such love and passion.”