Chemmy Alcott
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Chimene "Chemmy" Mary Alcott (born July 10, 1982 in Twickenham, Middlesex, Greater London) is the current British number one alpine skier.
Named after Sophia Loren’s character in the 1961 film El Cid, she started skiing aged 18 months while on a family trip to France, and skied in her first “fun” race at the age of three [1]. She grew up and went to school in Surbiton, Surrey. Age 12 she broke her neck in a skiing accident, recovering with two of her vertebrae fused together - she carries x-rays of this, so if she is in an accident the hospital won’t try to prise the vertebrae apart.
The current British No 1 alpine skier, Alcott's best disciplines are Downhill and Super G where she came forty-second and forty-third in the world respectively last season. She was also selected as a member of the Great Britain Olympic team for the Turin Winter Olympics 2006 where she is competing in the ladies combined, downhill, giant slalom and Super-G events.
Alcott was disqualified from the 2006 Winter Olympics combined event after the first run of the Slalom, being found with a ski 0.2mm narrower than FIS regulations permit [2]. She posted a 19th place in the Super-G and a career best 11th in the Downhill at Turin.
As the British ski team is sponsored by Audi, she drives an Audi A3 Quattro - and has undertaken some selected modelling contracts, including thermal underwear for Marks and Spencer.
She has been immortalised in song by the now-defunct UK indie band Three Litre in their composition "Downhill". The song featured as part of the band's "Alpine Suite" MP3 EPThe ArkadeThree Litre's myspace site. Sampling the famous BBC "Ski Sunday" theme tune the song uses Alcott's lack of success at 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to attack the UK government's lack of sports funding.
[edit] 2006/2007 Season
Alcott has made an extremely promising start to the 2006/2007 Alpine Ski World Cup season, finishing 13th in both Downhill's and 11th in the Super G in Lake Louise, Canada. In the second round of the world cup in Reiteralm, Austria, Alcott finished 7th in the Super Combined event - her best world cup result to date.
