A young island skier is heading to the United Kingdom to pursue his skiing dreams.
Cumberland’s Gabriel Gledhill has been cross country skiing since he moved from his native England in 2005. It’s a sport he loves.
“I started off at Mount Washington when I was about 6 or 7 years old in the Jack Rabbits program they have up there. The feeling of just being able to go for a ski, it’s very freeing,” says Gledhill.
The 17 year old is successful too, moving up the ladder on both local and international levels.
“I reached a junior race team that does a lot of training on the mountain around 4 times a week in the winter and from there the junior race team you move onto the provincial team here and then you sort of compete nationally and down in the States,” says Gledhill.
Now the Ipswich, Suffolk native will head back across the pond to join Great Britain’s national team for the 2020/2021 season.
“It’s going to be really cool, new team, new culture on training and how racing is viewed upon, can’t wait to get racing,” says Gabriel.
The fact that Gledhill is competing for his home country is not lost on parents David and Emma.
“One of the things about moving over to Canada is that you end up rearing a lot of Canadians, which I’m not against because David is Canadian, but it’s good to have one of your children really understanding the culture you come from,” says Emma, who was born and raised in the U.K.
“He’s got some pretty strong Canadian roots ad everyone we’ve talked to has been incredibly supportive at this end of him wanting to sort of pursue his potential in skiing,” says David.
But no matter what country he chooses to represent, they’re still proud of their boy.
“Looking back all you really do have are your memories and you want to make them as good as possible and he’s going to have some great memories regardless of what happens,” says David.
Gledhill will start his journey to the U.K. Sept. 5.
Cole Sorenson
