By Scott Wilson

THE North-East has already produced one ski-cross star in the shape of Durham’s British number one, Emily Sarsfield, but the region’s success story in one of the fastest-growing alpine sports does not stop there.

Sixteen-year-old Emma Peters, who is from Cleadon, finished second to Sarsfield in last winter’s British Championships, comfortably winning the junior crown to confirm her status as the most highly-rated youngster in the country.

She finished 18th at the World Junior Championships this spring, despite competing against skiers more than four years older than her, and was recently offered an educational scholarship at a leading Swiss ski school in Villars, near Geneva, where she will combine ski-cross coaching with study for an international baccalaureate.

The scholarship ends the funding fears that might otherwise have forced her to quit the sport, and should give her the best possible chance of securing selection for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Earlier this year, Sarsfield controversially missed out on the Winter Games in Sochi, when the British selectors refused to confirm her place despite her having met all the relevant qualification criteria.

Peters knows her fellow North-Easterner well, and is determined to ensure the region is represented when the next Winter Olympic ski-cross event gets under way in four years time.

“Emily’s been a big help to me and it was a real shame she didn’t get to compete in the Olympics,” said the teenager, who first began skiing regularly on the artificial slope at Silksworth when she was nine. “She’s given me lots of equipment and we competed together at the British Championships when we finished first and second.

“She’s from around here and she’s been quite an inspiration to me really because she proved you get to the very top if you work hard and believe in what you’re doing.

“She’s someone to try to emulate, and hopefully getting this scholarship will help me do that. People assume that if you’re involved in skiing you must be from a really rich background, so it can be hard to get sponsorship and funding support. That’s always been an issue up to now, but hopefully the move to Switzerland will help.”

Having recently completed her GCSEs at Whitburn Academy, Peters’ willingness to leave her family and friends behind in order to pursue her sporting dream underlines the ambition that has driven her to the top of a sport that is one of the most exhilarating and dangerous around.

Ski-cross sees six racers going head-to-head down a course that features a range of jumps, bumps, moguls and mounds. All too often, all six fail to make it to the finish, but rather than being worried about the potential for injuries, Peters insists the uncertainty only adds to the excitement of competing.

“I’ve stopped worrying about getting hurt,” she joked. “I’ve broken my fingers more times than I can remember so I don’t really think about it at all now.

“I initially did alpine skiing and I won the All-England Championships at the age of about 12. But I tried out ski-cross at Glenshee one time and was hooked straight away.

“It’s just more exciting and that’s what I enjoy. I started doing it pretty much exclusively last March and went over to compete in a championships in Switzerland and came away with a silver medal. That’s when I thought, ‘Maybe this is something that’s going to be good for me’.”

Peters is not the only talented skier in her family as her brother, Jack, is a member of the British disabled skiing squad.

Jack, who is 21, suffered an osteosarcoma that resulted in him having to have his leg amputated last year, but having been a keen skier in the past, he has subsequently returned to the slopes.

Skiing on one leg, he has achieved some notable results that have raised the possibility of him competing at the 2018 Paralympics. If that happens, the siblings could create history by becoming the first brother-and-sister partnership to compete for Britain at parallel Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“It would be quite something,” said their mother, Tina. “We’re so proud of both of them. Jack has shown real determination to come back to skiing, and Emma is so committed to what she’s doing she’s already given up so much to try to get to the top.”