Alpine skiing:my personal way

Presented by Natalia Kolchina, 7”A”School №1250, Moscow

My Mum: a person who inspires me to love sport

My Mum: Alina Trofimova

• She is not a professional skier, but a professional journalist. And, what is more important for me, the best Mum.

• My mother is an editor-in-chief of Superski.ru, the popular alpine ski website.

• And she is a person who shares her love of alpine skiing and an active lifestyle with our family and many other people.

My skiing: the start

• I started skiing at the age of 5.

• My first slopes were in Moscow (CSKA) and in Shukolovo (Moscow region).

• My mother made skiing look like a game and I was happy to make my first turns.

Passion for sport

• Together with my Mum and my new friends we have visited several ski resorts: Chamonix (France), Zermatt, Leukerbad, Villars, Crans-Montana (Switzerland), Kronplatz, Alta Badia (Italy), Krasnaya Poliana (Russia) and others.

• I improved my technique with ski instructors and won my first competition. But the main goal for me was to ski better then my mother and be brave enough to ski any slope, even the most difficult ones.

• We both realized I would not become an athlete - alpine skiing is a great sport, but not my future profession. Rather soon this activity became our mutual hobby. Travel, mountains, skiing, friends…it’s so great!

Inspiration for the family

• My father had never skied until he was 54 years old. His favorite kinds of sports were tennis and watching the football matches on TV.

• But after we returned from our first ski holidays that we spent together with my Mum, she persuaded him to try alpine skiing as well and now even he has become a great fan of this kind of sport.

• Thus, when he was 54, he started skiing. First with the help of a ski instructor, and always supported and inspired by my Mum. He improved his technique very rapidly and just after a few days he made his first turns on the easy slope. Since winter 2009 alpine skiing has become his favorite sport, and we try to spend every family holiday at ski resorts.

Skiing as a lifestyle• Alpine skiing became our family hobby. My

mother writes a lot about alpine skiing, the World Cup, World Championships and Winter Olympic Games. She has an opportunity to interview leading skiers, to travel a lot and to inspire more people to ski. I love skiing and we try to spend our weekends and holidays skiing.

• She is also a passionate skier and when we travel together we could cover up to 40 km of ski slopes during just a day. It is really exciting!

• My mother is very proud that my Dad and me are good skiers now and that we can ski even on the difficult slopes.

• Last winter we had a family competition on a special giant slalom course, and for the first time in my life I was faster than my Mummy.