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THE longer someone has been with you, the more keenly their absence is felt. For British skiing, no absence will be as glaring this winter as that of Emma Carrick- Anderson.
Even though she is still only 28, it is hard to recall a time when the Scot was not mentioned somewhere in despatches from the slopes. Her name, with the initials GB after it, was a familiar presence on the results lists, a reassurance that, despite this country's lack of a real winter sports tradition, we could still produce the odd competitor capable of mixing it with the best.
She first competed in the Winter Olympics in 1992, when she finished eighth in the combined slalom, and made her presence known in junior international events for a few years before that. For Carrick-Anderson herself, though, her history as a skier goes back much further, to her formative years.
"I started on snow when I was two," she recalled this week. "I started training at six, and I've felt like a skier ever since then. From that age I knew exactly what I wanted to do."
She was not quite so certain of her intentions earlier this year when she first began to think of retiring from competition. She went through with it, however, making public her decision a few months ago.
No fuss or fanfare accompanied the announcement, but that outward calm concealed some inner turmoil. She...