A 14-YEAR-OLD girl who learnt to cross-country ski on Tarmac has just become British champion and has set her sights on the Winter Olympics.

Beth Ireland can often be seen roller ski-ing up and down the Marston Ferry Road cycle path in Oxford and first started out in the South Oxfordshire District Council building car park at Crowmarsh, near Wallingford.

The Didcot girl – who trains on skis with wheels on the bottom – won the under-14 British championships last week and has competed on snow in Norway against the world’s best. And she only took up the sport two years ago.

Miss Ireland said: “My stepdad got me into it when he was training for a cross-country ski-ing marathon.

“He took the whole family to a session at Dorney Lake in Windsor and I enjoyed it so much I carried it on.

“It’s hard and very tiring – the races on snow are mostly uphill for around 8km at a sprint.”

Because of the lack of snow in the UK, any budding cross-country skier starts off with roller skis – shorter skis with wheels but the same technique complete with poles and helmets.

After six months of training with the Thames Valley Cross Country Ski Club in the SODC car park and Marston Ferry Road car park, the King Alfred’s schoolgirl joined the British Nordic Development Squad (BNDS) in Scotland.

She has since competed on snow in Norway and France and last Sunday won the under-14 British Roller Ski championships at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit.

She said: “I was really pleased to win. Roller ski-ing is a small sport with a good concentration in Oxfordshire.

“I was fairly sporty before but now I do a lot of running and dance, which helps my balance.”

She will be back to Scotland in November with the BNDS and then in Norway again for more snow races in December Miss Ireland said we could be seeing her in a Winter Olympics for Great Britain at some point down the line.

She said: “The next Winter Olympics is probably not likely but I am only 14 and a lot of the top skiers are 23 or 24 so I might be there in 10 years’ time. At the moment, though, I just want to see how far I can go with it. Iif I could go to the European Youth Olympics in 2017 that would be a dream.”

Her stepdad Neil Salmons said: “I just took her along one time. I thought it might be something the whole family could try.

“She has taken it on and her progression has been phenomenal – we are really proud of her. It’s transformed her life, she used to be a bit sporty but now she’s really driven.

The Thames Valley Cross Country Ski Club trains weekly at Sonning Common Primary School and fortnightly in Marston Ferry Road.