LARA GUT

You have already reached great heights as a skier at a very young age, but all great careers have humble beginnings. Can you tell us something about where you come from in Switzerland and how you began skiing?

I'm from Lugano - a city in the south of Switzerland. My father was born in Airolo, a small town about 80km from Lugano, where there's a small, but very good ski resort. So Airolo is my "ski-home".

For my 1st birthday, I received a pair of skis from my aunt and so when the winter came I tried skiing for the first time, even though I still wasn't two years old. We are a very sporting family and we always did things together. The family activities included biking, running and skiing.

Your first major victory came at the age of only 15, when you won the Super-G at the Swiss National Championships in 2007. For one so young, that was a very special achievement. Can you tell us how you felt about it at the time?

That was in Veysonnaz, which has an amazing and quite difficult slope. I didn't expect to win, but when I think back to this experience, I can understand why young skiers often win the National Championship rather than experienced World Cup Racers. It is an incredible opportunity for young people to score points, and so they give it everything they've got. When the senior racers come back from the World Cup finals they're often very tired – drained of energy and dreaming of getting away to the beach … and very definitely in need of a recovery period. Of course they give their best at the National Championships, but it's not so easy to come up to their full potential.

My case is a good example - I won the National Championship at just 15 years of age, but if I had raced in the World Cup Finals a week earlier, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been any faster than the other Swiss skiers.

Since that first early success, you have gone on to win a World Cup event in 2009, and had seven World Cup podium finishes while still a teenager. In achieving all of this, you have beaten many of the established stars of your sport, and are well on the way to becoming one yourself. What is your ultimate goal as a skier?

I think it is a little bit too early for me to think about having an "ultimate" goal. I won two races, and had seven Podium finishes, but that's nothing it I compare my career with those of Anja Pearson or Renate Goetschl. My next goal is the next season; I want to confirm what I did in the speed disciplines, but I also want to come back strongly in GS and Slalom. I've another goal too, and that is to ski faster in Slalom too.

And I'm pretty excited about racing with my new Rossignol skis!!

Your record of achievement is all the more impressive because a serious hip injury forced you to miss one whole season. Were you ever concerned that you might not have been able to come back and compete again at the highest level?

No, I wasn't. When you're injured, you simply don't have that much time to think about what might be, or might have been, if... I focused all my energy on my rehab. I worked hard, and was able to come back at least at my earlier level of proficiency.

That might sound a little bit easier than how it really was, but when I think back, I can't describe it any better than that. And anyway, I don't think there is need to remember what makes us feel bad.