Nick Westby: Sheffield is on a slippery slope when it comes to Olympic legacy

The dry ski slopes built in the Steel City at a cost of £2.5m a quarter of a century ago was the starting point on the journey to Olympic recognition for a host of British athletes who will compete in the Russian Black sea resort in February.

These are not just any skiiers, turning up to make up the numbers while the big names from the Alpine nations and North America slalom off with the medals and the accolades.

These are genuine medal contenders, who have taken the lessons learned on what they describe as the “toothbrush-like” surface of Sheffield’s slopes and the world’s-first dry halfpipe to become international winter sports stars.

James Woods is World Cup champion in the freeskiing sport of slopestyle and among the favourites to land a medal in his discipline’s Olympic debut in Sochi.

Katie Summerhayes is only 19 but is a double medallist in the slopestyle World Cup and a young woman bang in form heading into her first Olympic Games.

Injury may have hampered James Machon’s preparations but he is the third member of the British team from Sheffield who learned his trade – skiing halfpipe – on his hometown slopes that overlook Penistone Road.

Others who will wear the red, white and blue of Great Britain in Sochi spent many an hour in South Yorkshire learning these adrenalin-fuelled sports and perfecting their techniques on the twists and turns.

Skiing and/or snowboarding is a lifestyle as much as a sport, and Sheffield’s dry slope was a central hub for those who lived for their hobby.

If Woods, Summerhayes or Machon win a medal in Sochi next month, not only will they and their sport be subject to interest in this country like never before, their history and their futures will also come under the microscope.

Where and how they learned will be the first questions asked, before attention will turn to their legacy and how adults and children inspired by what they have seen on the television can start out on their own road to replicating those feats.

And therein lies the snag. For the Sheffield slopes that will finally have reaped international and Olympic acclaim are no more.

What was once a hive of activity is now a barren wasteland, used for fly-tipping, not flying through the air.

The main building was destroyed in a fire in April 2012 and has been closed for business ever since. The land is owned privately, but nothing has been done by the owners to rebuild the site and restore the once proud venue to its former prominence.

Sheffield Council is in talks with the owners to clean up the mess, but otherwise, it is out of their hands. After a quarter century of skiing history in the city, there looks to be no future for the sport in Sheffield.

The local authority are responsible when it comes to that other beacon of Olympic legacy in Sheffield, the Don Valley Stadium, of which the recent pictures of its bulldozing have accompanied headline news on a national level.

There is widespread disbelief at the council’s decision to mock the Olympic legacy so blatantly, just a year after Jessica Ennis won gold at London 2012 and ‘inspired a generation’.

In Sochi over the coming weeks, the Steel City will once again come under the spotlight for the facilities it has given to its budding sports stars, and then whipped from underneath them just as the nation casts its glance their way.

Sheffield, it seems, does not do monuments to sporting success any more.

And that is the real sadness of this story, that 
children who will be enthralled by these new sporting stars in Sochi have little chance of emulating them.

It is also upsetting for the city’s golden generation of winter sports athletes, who know their legacy will never be fulfilled.

“The hardest thing for me was when I went up and saw it,” says Summerhayes, who first visited the slopes as a six-year-old and now is a globe-trotting skier on the professional circuit.

“I spent every Saturday and Sunday there, plus every Wednesday and Thursday night. I grew up there.

“I got so many memories, so many experiences from it, and now people aren’t going to get that chance.

“There’s other places you can go, but for me it was close to home and in my city.

“That was the thing that really struck me, that youngsters aren’t going to get the same experiences I had.

“Even before it closed I was still skiing there all the time when I returned home.

“The season before when I was still in school, I’d be there every night.

“There was a great atmosphere at the ski village. You were outside and you had all the elements; rain, snow, sunshine, every different weather. It was also cheaper than some places are now.

“It was easily rebuildable after the fire, but it’s gone past the point of no return now unless they full on strip it and do it all again.

“Don Valley has been knocked after Jess got a gold, and now this.

“It’s truly devastating.”

Machon added: “I wouldn’t be where I am now without that facility because it was the only place in the world that had a dry slope halfpipe

“It’s only half the size of a traditional halfpipe but enough to learn the basics on.

“The British Championships was the first time I went on snow, but it was at Sheffield where I first learned my sport.”

Sadly, the chances of Sheffield again producing such as Woods, Summerhayes or Machon have been greatly reduced, just when it was becoming ripe to do so.

and another thing...

There is some good news when it comes to the Olympic legacy in Yorkshire...

Earlier this month it was announced that plans have been approved to build a new £1m boathouse at Thwaite Mills on the Aire and Calder Navigation Canal, with work to begin in February.

The project is being delivered through a unique partnership between the University of Leeds, Leeds University Union, Leeds Rowing Club and Sport England.

It is funded by University of Leeds, British Rowing, Sport England and Wren.

What it means is that Leeds Rowing Club, which is significantly oversubscribed, can open its doors to the large number of people who are on a waiting list to join their proud club.

It is fantastic news of the legacy in action, and well done to the bodies involved for acknowledging the demand and making it happen.

I was involved in a participation feature with Leeds Rowing Club last summer, to help raise awarness about their ambitions to realise their full potential, and also to start the process of shifting a little timber from around my midriff. At least one of those ambitions has come to fruition.