NEVER TOO COLD
The Champions Award is presented by The Sunday Times each year to a sports person or team operating outside the spotlight of mainstream sports. Column inches are few and far between. These are the sports people who go unnoticed but who are no less remarkable than those routinely filling both back and front pages, and arguably more determined.
The absence of those trappings of fame leave these athletes pure and single minded in the pursuit of their dreams, and, for water skier Nicole Arthur, 20, this year’s winner and a sponsored SUSO athlete, it was very much a case of following a dream. It was her grandfather, Ian Arthur, who introduced the sport to Scotland in 1952 and set up the Slamannan Ski Club in the Forth Valley where Nicole still trains today. Water skiing in a Scottish loch? Do you know how cold it gets up there? You need to be pretty stubborn and a little bit mad to get in that water every single day - perhaps why Scotland is hardly renowned for its water sports - but Nicole is both and more. Despite the need for thick rubber suits, despite her age, and despite the fact that the winter darkness up north means finding the time to train with her coach and father (who himself won 18 consecutive Scottish Championships in the 70s) after work a little difficult to say the least, Nicole has been on a rampage of late, winning slalom titles at the British Open Championship, the British Under-21 Championships and the European Under-21 Championships. Then, to cap it all, she won gold at the World Slalom Championships in Austria two months ago, seeing off more experienced rivals who grew up and learned in somewhat warmer and more hospitable climates around the world (!).
It’s in specialist sports such as these, where the rewards are far less monetary and often far more personal, that you find people with the most creative and determined attitudes. There seems to be more to overcome, and if you do make it, only a specific demographic gets to hear about it. That’s why SUSO works with and is constantly looking for people like Nicole; you just know these people are doing it for all the right reasons (refreshing given the ongoing debate about the health of football in this country and the half hearted displays of ‘passion’ at Wembley). Nicole is one such person, and the awards she’s earned are testament to all those years spent bobbing up and down in a half frozen loch.
I am trying to contact Dr Ian Arthur, I believe he was present at the point of my birth and indeed had an integral part in the fact I am alive today.
I wish you all the best in your own life, however i assume that you are Dr Arthur's grandaughter, is it possible to contact him re same???
yours very sincerely
Hazel McArthur
ps my mother's name was Jean Dunlop