A team of five girls from Crickhowell High School have won the British Schools Ski Championship.

The squad was captained by Saskia Henry-Davies (year 11) and includes Maisie Williams (year 10), Evie-Mae Phillips (year 9) and Erin and Manon Higgins (year 10). The team performed incredibly in Llandudno on Saturday, March 12 and took home top honours. The girls have become the first Welsh team to win for several years.

The best school teams in Britain were invited to these championships, following qualification through regional and then national rounds and into the championships.

All five of the group have been key to the team’s success both in the qualification stages and in the final, with relative newcomers Evie-Mae and Maisie developing fast and adding much-needed depth to the squad.

It’s been a remarkably successful 12 months for Crickhowell skiers, with the squad winning the Welsh School Championships for the second time, with Saskia, Erin and Manon being invited to join the Welsh Ski Team and with Erin becoming British Under-16 dry slope champion.

In an incredible feat of determination and hard work, Erin, who also won individual bronze medal across all age groups, was competing only three and a half weeks after being helicoptered off the mountain and into emergency surgery, following a nasty ski accident in Austria.

The Crickhowell Girls’ team’s impressive performance, improving from 10th place in the last British Championships to the top slot this year, is largely due to the brilliant coaching of Pontypool Ski Racing’s Head Coach, Adam Bloom, without whom, they say, this win would have been impossible.

Pontypool Ski Racing (PSR) are the race club located at Pontypool Ski Slope - a great local resource for youngsters to develop their skiing skills.