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 in East Renfrewshire, 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 ten is a high achievement in the sport. The British number one, Dave Ryding, has scored under ten only a handful of times in his career.
Zak's mother, Julie Vinter, a ski instructor at the Glasgow Ski Centre in Bellahouston Park, said yesterday: "He did incredibly well. Our phone has been ringing off the hook since five o'clock this morning. He skied out of his skin. It was a particularly difficult race - there were a lot of people in it and because it's an Olympic year coming up there were a lot of foreigners, Americans and Europeans, who had gone down to the ANC races chasing points trying to get Olympic qualification. So there were a lot of really good world cup racers.
"He's absolutely delighted. His coaches were pretty shocked by the result he managed to get."
The result means that 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 could be chosen to compete in the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018.
His father, Mark, also an instructor at the Glasgow Ski Centre, said 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. He has until the end of January next year to make the selection for Team GB.
The success in Australia means that Zak also qualifies automatically for the World Junior Championships.
Mr Vinter said: "Up until last night, the next Winter Olympics weren't really on his radar. But the result he's just got is putting Zak into a better opportunity to maybe be ranked second or third in the UK to give him a chance to qualify to actually get into the Olympics.
"What Zak did last night is a huge jump [up the rankings]. It could take you two or three years to make that jump, but he's managed to do it in the first couple of races of the season. It basically shows us he is ski-ing to some kind of form, so he has a potential of doing it.
"His target was to get to the Olympics in five years time, rather than next year, so if he qualifies this year would be more about going for experience rather than competing for a medal."
Scotland has not had a Olympic medallist skier since Alain Baxter won bronze in the men's slalom at Salt Lake City in 2002. However, Baxter was later controversially stripped of the medal for failing a drugs test after mistakenly absorbing a banned substance through a nasal inhaler.
Zak, a former pupil at Mearns Castle high School, has been dubbed a potential "Andy Murray of snowsport" thanks to his talent on the slopes - and a 16-year-old brother, Owen, who is also tipped as a potential future star.
Both boys have been ski-ing since they were two and became members of the British children's team aged 11.
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