SMM+S

ghostwhisperer · Forum Member Joined: 13 Feb 2009 Posts: 153

From The Press & Journal, October 17 2007

ONE of Britain's greatest athletes unveiled a tribute to Highland Olympians yesterday while their supporters rallied to ensure other local talent would have the same chance to flourish.
Gold medallist runner Sebastian Coe, now Baron Coe, took centre stage in Aviemore's Main Street, where hundreds of villagers gathered to honour 14 of the area's finest sports achievers - most present for the occasion.
Their names now adorn a bronze sculpture standing proudly on the village green.
The £36,000 creation, resplendent with Olympic flame and mounted on Cairngorm granite, represents the Olympic ideals of "faster, higher, stronger".
For some, the artwork of Inverness-born Dudley Evans is symbolic of an era when climate change poses a challenge to future winter-sport greatness.
Watersports entrepreneur Clive Freshwater, whose Olympian skier son, Andrew, is honoured, said: "It's a proud day because I wouldn't think there's a city or town in the country with as many Olympians as the Spey Valley.
"Sadly, with the poorer skiing, it's going to be a bit harder to produce Olympians."
Skier Ingrid Grant said: "The winters are milder than when we were younger and it means that our youngsters are going to have to find extra funding to travel abroad and make use of the better snow conditions abroad."
Nordic skier Louise MacKenzie, 43, another of the elite, shared this concern. "When we were younger, we had snow from October through till May," she said.
Staggered by the valley's sporting prowess, Lord Coe. who is chairman of the London 2012 Games organising committee, said: 'This is an extraordinary story: a population of barely 10,000 peoplt producing per head of the population so many talented people. I don't know what you're doing but, for God's sake, don't stop doing it because it's clearly working."

ghostwhisperer · Forum Member Joined: 13 Feb 2009 Posts: 153

Ian Finlayson (skiing)
Peter Fuchs (skiing)
Roddy Langmuir (skiing)
Sean Langmuir (skiing)
Ewan MacKenzie (Nordic skiing)
Louise MacKenzie (Nordic skiing)
Ingrid Grant (skiing)
Alain Baxter (skiing)
Andrew Freshwater (skiing)
Douglas Dryburgh (curling)
James Dryburgh (curling)
Craig MacLean (cycling)
Noel Baxter (skiing)
Lesley McKenna (snowboarding)