Hughes looks to build platform for future Games glory

In the absence of those vital winter sports ingredients of snow and ice on which to train, athletes from the white rose county, and indeed Britain as a whole, are forced either to adapt or just go along for the sheer enjoyment of an Olympic Games.

The latter idea does not suffice for the likes of Shelley Rudman, Kristan Bromley and Nicola Minichiello, the skeleton and bobsleigh trio who use state-of -the-art technolgoy to enhance their medal potential from their dry-land operation in South Yorkshire.

Nor does it apply to Fiona Hughes, a 19-year-old cross-country skier from Huddersfield who practices her art in Scotland, Austria and Norway as well as on the roads of Barkisland in Halifax, over the North Yorkshire moors and on the newly-relaid tarmac of the Spen Valley Greenway.

Such coarse terrain is not ideal for a set of traditional snow skis so Hughes uses two-foot long roller skis that have wheels fitted onto the bottom.

"They work the same muscle groups as the skis," explains Hughes, who got into the sport during a family holiday in Norway seven years ago.

"It does make it hard not having much snow but it's one of those things that you have to accept. You have to make use of what you have on your doorstep.

"The rest of the field will have had more time on the snow but what we are doing seems to be working."

Her optimism derives from her sheer delight at earning selection for a debut at the Winter Olympics, which is also only her second major senior meet following the world championships in the Czech Republic last year.

Hughes met the qualifying criteria after a successful end to the 2009 season but with so much young talent in a sport that is growing in Britain – her and the two men in the cross-country events are all teenagers – she says: "Even then, you never really know until the phone call comes through."

When it did the celebrations were muted because she was in a junior competition in Germany, watched by her parents and her sister who will follow her in the Olympic 10km time trial on Monday.

Hughes's ambitions are modest for next week's race, and while she may not feature in UK Sport's target of three medals at Vancouver, she could become a household winter sport name in years to come.

"Realistically I'm not going to be at the front of the field, but hopefully I can produce the best race of my life," she said. "Because I'm only 19 I never really thought 2010 was a realistic aim. But ever since the end of last winter I knew it was achievable.

"I improved throughout the season, peaking particularly at the end of the season.

"The Olympics will be an experience I can learn from, racing at the highest level and against the best athletes in the sport.

"Then when I go back to the Olympics in four, eight and maybe 12 years' time, I'm better for the experience and the one to beat."