WSA European Championships Inzell

In January 2017 I received a life changing opportunity, the offer to represent Great Britain at a European championship event on snow. The only drawback was that despite competing in Sleddog sports for over a decade I had never actually raced on snow. I was officially named as the Eddie the Eagle of dog sports in the press.

Never one to be put off by simple factors such as this or the fact I had never even skied I grasped the opportunity with both hands. After running round for a couple of weeks myself and a trusty pal turned my van into a makeshift camper for us and the 7 dogs we needed to fit in and headed to the Alps.

The first stop was a week long mushers training camp in Austria where somehow I expected to just jump on a sled and ride it like a boss. That didn’t happen, the whole feel and concept of sliding felt unutterably alien to me. I was used to handlebars and a wheel to steer, along with braking with my hands. Sliding along with no steering as such and trying to balance while braking with my feet felt terribly wrong. Not only that the way to ride and balance was totally different. It was a disaster, I actually hated being on snow, to add to that we were sleeping in a van with no heating when overnight temperatures were hitting -20 overnight. The experience is what is commonly called character building.

Eventually we made our way to in Inzell in Germany where I managed to fulfil a childhood dream of mushing dogs on snow for real. With 1000s of people watching I took on some of the best mushers across Europe and came last. However the experience lit a fire in me that hasn’t been quenched since.