My eldest son Locki, who’s seven, desires to be a ski racer like me and his dad, however I’m actually torn.

I do not know if this sport, which has introduced me a lot alternative and love, will likely be round for Locki and his little brother Cooper to take pleasure in.

It is 100 years since Chamonix hosted the primary Winter Olympics in 1924, however analysis by the International Olympic Committee final yr discovered only 10 countries will have the ability to host snow sports activities by 2040 because of the influence of local weather change.

Chamonix’s legacy is rightly being celebrated – however truly, I feel there is a unhappiness in celebrating one thing that’s altering so radically.

We’re in Chamonix in the intervening time and needed to deliver you the lads’s downhill World Cup motion from right here on this week’s episode of Ski Sunday. But it has been cancelled, together with the ladies’s downhill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, as a result of excessive temperatures and subsequently poor snow circumstances.

Cancellations have gotten the norm. I really feel like we’re not giving the mountains, which give us this chance to point out how nice our sport is, the love and the safety they want.

We’re not adapting to the setting. We’re asking the setting to adapt to the races, and we won’t try this. Instead, we have to take a look at the calendar, take a look at the mountains and the snow ranges, and work with nature.

Everyone now is aware of they’ve to make use of their voice and the athletes are demanding change.

I discovered to ski once I was 18 months previous, and I first skied the Vallee Blanche – an off-piste run on glaciers subsequent to Mont Blanc – once I was 10. It was an iconic second for me as a result of I used to be snowboarding one of the vital well-known runs on the planet.

You all the time bear in mind your first win in sports activities. Well, I bear in mind the primary time I skied Vallee Blanche.

And then I went again there 25 years later pondering I knew what to anticipate. But I used to be simply blown away by how a lot it had modified.

When I used to be 10, I took 5 steps from the run to stroll to the gondola. When I went again 25 years later, these 5 steps had turn into 580.

The glacier has misplaced a lot quantity on the backside, greater than 100m – that is greater than the peak of Big Ben. Think of that vertical top, misplaced in simply my lifetime.

Now, once you hike up the steps, there’s a plaque each 10m exhibiting the retreat of the glacier, and you’ll see how rapidly it’s taking place.

It’s one thing you could’t ignore as soon as you have seen it. I’ve turn into keen about it, however I’ll admit it is one thing that took me a very long time to turn into keen about.

When I used to be a ski racer for Great Britain, I did not actually lookup at what was round me. From 1999 to 2014, I spent my life in a really egocentric, vicious circle of travelling the world racing, coaching after which travelling once more. It was about me being as quick as I could possibly be.

It took this second time at Vallee Blanche for me to understand how the mountains are altering proper in entrance of my eyes – and for me to essentially begin caring.

That hazard of the very rapid future is inflicting me to try to make the modifications that I can. So many individuals care in regards to the mountains, however they do not know learn how to make a change.

But it is about us all collectively making an attempt to be extra constructive in the direction of defending our winters.

There’s hope by way of resorts turning into powered by renewable power, there’s hope that there are snow trains operating now from London to the Alps that provide help to massively scale back your carbon footprint.

There’s hope by way of what you are able to do. I lease my garments, I drive an electrical automobile, I eat much less meat and this winter I used the snow practice to get out to the Alps. It’s about goal over perfection, adapting your expectations and making just a few sacrifices.

I 100% worry for my sons’ future in snowboarding. There’s no approach they may lead the life that I did as knowledgeable skier. I used to fly to New Zealand to ski each summer season, however that is not one thing I’m going to encourage to my youngsters as a result of it isn’t good for the planet.

So we’re simply having fun with each second on the snow that we are able to proper now as a result of we all know that these moments aren’t infinite.

Watch Ski Sunday on 4 February from 17:15 GMT on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.