Teen ski sensation targets Olympics
A TEENAGE ski-ing sensation from Scotland is poised to compete in his first Winter Olympics next year after racing “out of his skin” at an international slalom even in Australia.
Zak Vinter, 19, from Newton Mearns, stunned his coaches after finishing in fourth place in the ANC Continental Cup Slalom in Thredbo.
He crossed the finish line of the downhill obstacle course less than 0.3 seconds behind the winner, Linus Strasser from Germany, with a points score of 8.88.
Scoring less than 10 is a high achievement in the sport. The British number one, Dave Riding, has scored under 10 only a handful of times in his career.
The result means Zak, a former British children’s ski champion, will enter the world’s top 500.
The average of his best five results is also now good enough to rank him as an ‘A’ class athlete – the criteria for potential Olympics entrants.
It means he is a potential candidate for the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018.
Zak’s family and coaches hope the result will encourage new sponsors to come forward as they try to raise at least £6000 to £7000 to send him to Olympics qualifier races in Colorado, Sweden and Italy.
The teenage athlete has until the end of January next year to make the selection for Team GB.