A north-east Winter Olympics star has put his career on hold in order to realise a business dream closer to home.
Banchory snowboarder, Ben Kilner, who competed in the half-pipe at the 2010 and the 2014 Winter Olympics, has not ruled out participating at next year’s Games in South Korea.
But Mr Kilner, 28, yesterday described his sporting future as “questionable” and said: “I’ve been absent from a lot of the Olympic qualifying events, so I don’t know what the future holds.
“This year is an important year obviously on the business side of things – an opportunity came along and I felt I had to grasp it by the horns and take it.”
Mr Kilner took over the former Deeside Indoor Sporting Club in December in order to expand his existing gym business into larger premises.
And he ditched plans for a training trip to Colorado, so he could focus on opening his new facility as soon as possible.
However, Mr Kilner is not ready to hang up his salopettes just yet, adding: “If I can get away for a couple of weeks here and there, I will definitely be giving it a go.
“I just need to make sure all the members are happy and the business is running smoothly.”
The Unit Gym opened for business last May and quickly smashed its capacity of 250 members.
At that point, realising the need for bigger premises, Mr Kilner took over the current Inchmarlo Road site in December.
Now his Unit Gym has jumped to a membership of 447, just days after it opened its doors at the start of February.
The Scottish star said he recognised a need for a gym in his hometown after the daily commute into Aberdeen for training sessions became increasingly problematic.
Therefore, he decided to fulfil another of his life’s ambitions by opening one in Banchory.
Mr Kilner added: “We ended up hitting our third-year business plan target in the first three months and having to put a cap on the membership because the gym was just getting far too busy in the evenings.
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult, especially after cancelling my trip to Colorado. The hardest part was telling my teammates I won’t be seeing them on the road.”