Dave Ryding at the Winter Olympics 2018: 16 years on and the ambition for glory still burns bright

The fire was first lit 16 years ago and, while there have been moments it has nearly been extinguished, the ambition for Olympic glory still burns bright for Dave Ryding.

Sitting on the family sofa as an impressionable teenager, Ryding was transfixed as Alain Baxter twisted and turned his way round the myriad of gates to win the unlikeliest of Olympic slalom bronze medals.

It wasn’t that Ryding found himself shouting at the television, “I’m not a screaming at the TV kind of guy,” he says. “But that moment got the fire burning. I thought ‘that’d be really cool to do’. It was awesome.

“I didn’t understand the fall-out at the time when it happened [Baxter had his medal removed after failing a drugs test for a nasal spray] - I didn’t really know what drug testing and thought ‘this is a bit weird’. But immaterial there was now a fire inside and a belief that the Brits could do it.”

That Ryding decided that day it was possible to reach the higher echelons of the slalom seemed farfetched. He had never once finished on the podium in British events, let alone against the best the rest of the world had to offer. Instead, as he puts it, “I was a late bloomer”.

And the parallels in Pyeongchang to Baxter in Salt Lake City are not lost on him. He adds: “He probably came into that situation ranked lower than I am now but the favourites don’t always win. It’s cool to be in a position where I can do the same.”

On paper, what would be a third gold medal in Korea is loosely being draped over the neck of Marcel Hirscher such has been his dominance to date but the same was being done to Mikaela Shiffrin on the eve of the slalom only for the American to finish a surprise fourth.

Hirscher aside, on the snow this has often been the Games of the underdog.

“Even before I came to this one we’ve seen it in the past,” says Ryding. “That’s what happens. The favourite probably doesn’t win at the Olympic Games. They’re humans, they get nervous.”

A regular top-10 finisher with a second place to Hirscher in Kitzbühel last season, Ryding is in the conversation when it comes to possible medallists. But to do so, he knows he both needs to take risks and also put down two clean runs, the habitual balancing act of any slalom skier.

Before getting in the start gate, he will repeatedly visualise the whole experience from top to bottom, trying to imagine it’s any World Cup race “even though I realise it isn’t any World Cup race”.

To prepare, he has trained with the best: both Hirscher and Shiffrin, the former for two days after his season opener, the latter during his off-season indoors. More than anything, the realisation was the secrets to their respective successes was not rocket science.

“It’s pretty similar to what we do but they’re just real grafters, meticulous with everything,” says Ryding. “It’s nothing special but a lot of hard work, like what we’re doing.”

For a time, that graft was to no avail. When he finished 31st – missing 30th and the opportunity on the World Cup circuit to qualify for a second run by a solitary point – three seasons ago, he toyed with walking away.

“My parents were supportive but it’s easy to batter your parents off,” he says. “But my coach [Tristan Glasse-Davies] persuaded me to get back on the snow when I was bummed out, in the gutter, down in the dumps.”

The fire that was in danger of being extinguished was reignited and Ryding has catapulted up the rankings to be an Olympic medal contender. Is he perhaps peaking at the right time?

“Well, I can claim that but it wasn’t like I was not trying to peak at the right time at the other races,” he says. “But maybe that’s it, peaking at exactly the right time. We’ll see.”

DFS is proud to continue its support of Team GB as the official homeware partner, bringing the joy of comfort to Team GB athletes throughout 2018 and beyond.