Team GB skier Andrew Musgrave led the charge for the Huntly contingent at the Winter Olympics yesterday when he made history at Sochi 2014.
The 23-year-old became the first British cross- country skier to qualify for the quarter-finals of an Olympic sprint event when he finished inside the top 30 from a field of 86 competitors.
Back home, a group of about 30 locals with cow bells and flags gathered to cheer on the four athletes from Huntly Nordic Ski Club who are competing at the games.
Andrew Young, 21, and Callum Smith, 21, skied in the same qualifier as Musgrave, while Rosamund (Posy) Musgrave – his older sister – took part in the equivalent women’s race.
Community organisation Deveron Arts, which is based in Huntly, invited supporters to Cheers Bar in the Gordon Arms Hotel to watch the breakfast-time races, but a poor internet connection forced a last-minute shift to a nearby shop where they were able to follow the live action.
Among the crowd was local councillor Moira Ingleby.
She said: “It is such an achievement for Andrew Musgrave and the other Huntly skiers, as well as the Huntly community.”
Also watching eagerly was childhood friend and fellow British ski team member Alex Standen.
Alex, 23, who went to school with Andrew Musgrave, said he was “very proud” of all of the Huntly skiers at the Olympics.
“When we started there wasn’t a British team and there weren’t many people doing it in the UK,” he said.
“I suppose we have opened doors together, and anything we have achieved it’s been done together.”
The Huntly Nordic Ski Club athletes make up the entire cross-country ski-ing section of Team GB.
Banchory’s Ben Kilner competed in the snowboarding halfpipe event but the Cairngorms Snowboard Club member failed to qualify for the semi- finals.
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