James Whitley skiing sensation

James Whitley, aged 10, from Wilmington, a Year 6 pupil at St Bede's Prep School, should be congratulated for his fantastic achievements in skiing. Over the last few days, James has been preparing for, and participating in, The Villars 24 hour Race, an international ski race held to raise money for two childrens' charities in England and in Switzerland. It is an amateur race, which tests speed, stamina and endurance; and is used as a training ground for a lot of the top international teams. Friday 16 January, was spent getting to know the course and the other team members - of which there were six - 3 seated skiers, and 3 stand ups, including James. The race started at midday on Saturday. It was a super giant slalom course of 10 km and then back up a gondola lift. At the start gun the competitors of approximately 100 international teams, had to run up a 200 metre gradient with their skis before they could start to ski!

Each team member raced several laps, before changing over to the next. Once it got dark, the course changed to a shorter but steeper run of 3 km and a chairlift. James continued racing throughout the night before the course changed back to the day time course.

At 2.45am, one team member crashed and broke his ski which took him out of the race for five hours while a replacement ski had to be found. This put a lot of pressure on James and one other team member to complete the course. Between them, they not only managed this, but managed to move an outstanding 10 places up the leader board.

James' team won gold in their category, having covered an extraordinary 400km, and were awarded their medals by the organisers David Coulthard and Damon Hill. James personally covered 115km, and completely exhausted his outriders. He was introduced to David Coulthard as Britain's rising star, with great expectations for the 2014 Olympic Games.