A stalwart of the Alpine skiing World Cup, it’s strange to imagine the elite circuit without Dave Ryding. But at the end of the 2025-26 season, the veteran Englishman will hang up his skis. He’ll be 39 then – although if the previous season is anything to go by, still able to teach his younger competitors a thing or two.
“It was quite a natural decision to make,” he tells The Independent, ahead of today’s official announcement. “It’s just important that I’m still in a position to compete, because I’ve never done this sport for anything other than results, to prove myself, to achieve goals, to dedicate myself to something. I mean, I’m a ski racer, not a footballer – it could never be about finances!
“It was always about competing with the best, proving myself week in, week out, and showing the nation that it was possible, from the UK, to have a career in the top 15 like mine, going into its 10th year. No one’s ever come close to doing that.”
He notes that in recent years the sacrifices to be a professional athlete have only increased, with his wife and three-year-old daughter left at home over the winter. Ryding says, “It’s very much the right time – right to me and justifiable to my wife! It was nice to think, right, let’s draw a line there and just go absolutely all in again, and then come the [Winter] Olympics, try and do my best ever performance.”
Ryding credits his passion for the sport and “never-wavering commitment” – as well as “Northern grit” – as reasons behind his longevity: ten straight seasons on the World Cup, with his debut on the circuit in 2009.
He adds that it takes a village to support a professional athlete, from coaches, to sponsors, to his family. “A lot of the time you’re in a dark place as an athlete, it’s not all sunshine and roses. But to have those people behind you, particularly my wife, that’s been one of the key things.”
He took a different path to the sport than the likes of his Austrian and Swiss competitors, growing up racing on dry slopes, and only cracking the World Cup circuit at 28. He laughs at the memory of when he first started out, when he was ranked 18th out of 20 British skiers born in 1986. But his strong racing background served him well when he finally made the switch to snow.
At the Kitzbuhel World Cup in 2017, when he led after the first run, he says, “I had a flashback from the very first dry slope race. I had the same emotions going through my body of anxiety, pressures, excitement, as what I felt when I was 16, 17, years old on the dry slopes. 100% there’s been an advantage of having so much competition in the UK.”
That proved a memorable day for the 38-year-old: his first World Cup podium, a second place, with his tally now up to seven. That includes his historic win in Kitzbuhel five years later, when he became the first – and so far only – Briton to win an Alpine skiing World Cup.
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That win is, for obvious reasons, the highlight of his career. “Not just because I won it, but it also showed the persistence [required], because I was the oldest-ever first time winner of any World Cup, oldest-ever winner of a slalom, never mind the first Brit. To tick that box was more than what I dreamed of as a kid. I just wanted to be in the top 30 so I could compete in second runs and be on television! Never did I imagine that I would be in a position to win.”
A close second was his sixth-place finish at the World Championships this February, the best result for a British male skier since 1934. After an error in his ski set-up on the first run, Ryding – on adjusted skis – took the lead on his second. “I was like, you know what, if this is the last World Champs, if this is the last time I have a green light [as the race leader], then I’m going to really enjoy it and savour it. I probably went over the top, dancing in the leader’s enclosure! But I will remember that moment forever. It was one of my best days on snow.”
Ryding will aim to approach his final season with the same attitude. He says, “As an athlete, the blinkers are on and you’re not looking at anything other than what you’re doing. I hope that knowing that this is the last time, I will try and savour the moments everywhere I go.”
The hunger and the drive to improve is still there. “Last year, I really felt like I’d left something on the table with only having a ninth in a major event [his previous best at the World Championships]. I felt like that’s not a true replication of my ability. I was really keen to better that, and that’s the same sort of approach I will try to bring to this season.”
Ryding doesn’t yet have concrete plans for his life post-retirement; he and wife Mandy ran a cafe until daughter Nina was born, and a move into business could be on the cards, while he is likely to continue in his mentoring role for Tignes-based club Apex 2100. But for now, family comes first – “until the moment comes my wife wants to kick me out of the house because I’m so annoying when I’m always at home!” he jokes.
Ryding is enthusiastic about the future of Alpine skiing in Britain: alongside World Cup teammates Laurie Taylor and Billy Major, he says, there are plenty of younger athletes who could take the sport to greater heights.
“I’m listening to the next generation and the generation after that, because I’m so old and they’re already coming through, they talk about podiums, about winning. It’s something that was never spoken about when I was young,” he says. “The biggest thing I’ve seen over the last 10 years is the sense of belief from the Brits that are coming through, and I think that will just open up more achievements.
“I remember banging my head against a brick wall trying to get that win. I really felt like it was there, I’d been winning halfway down second runs, three quarters down, and then made little mistakes, and I never got it done. But once I got that, smashed through that sort of ceiling, then I think it opened people’s minds to like, ‘this is actually achievable – and Dave came from a dry slope and was rubbish when he was 17!’”
Ryding will forever have a place in the history books as Britain’s first Alpine World Cup winner, although he hopes athletes to come can go “above and beyond” his achievements.
What Ryding would like to be remembered is the commitment that underpinned his career. “I think if it shows younger kids the dedication it needs… no matter what you do in life, you can go out there and achieve it. Whether you’re a journalist or a doctor or a lawyer, or a ski racer, the application to a task over a long period of time consistently, will allow you to achieve some things that you never thought possible,” he says.
