I'm probably more known as someone who broke bones

Former ski racer Chemmy Alcott chats to LISA SALMON about why she's supporting a new NHS campaign to protect A&E

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AS one of Britain's greatest-ever female skiers, Chemmy Alcott has had her fair share of injuries - some of them very serious.

During her 20-year skiing career, in which she became the eighth ranked skier in the world, the four-time Olympian broke more than 40 bones, including her back, neck, legs and ribs, as well as suffering a multitude of tendon and ligament injuries.

“Unfortunately, I'm probably more known as someone who broke bones in my career than anything I achieved in the sport,” she jokes.

“But I’m actually quite proud, very sadistically, about the injuries I've had, because those were moments where I had the confidence to push myself to my limits, and if I hadn’t got hurt, then I wouldn’t know where my limit is.”

Chemmy, 43, retired from competitive skiing in 2014 and as well as now presenting Ski Sunday (“my dream job”), she'll join Clare Balding as a presenter of the BBC's Winter Olympics coverage from Milano Cortina in February.

She says she has no health repercussions from her injuries, and although some athletes can have a mental block that affects their return to sport after serious injury, that didn’t happened to her.

“I just knew I'd get injured - you don’t become a downhill skier and be afraid of injury,” she insists. “It’s part of your journey in the sport, and I was very lucky that none of my injuries fell in an Olympic year, so I managed to ski those four Olympics, and I’m very proud of that.”

She says there were eight years where she didn’t get injured, but admits at that time she didn’t give 100% to her performances. “I chose to be 80% and it was an incredibly unsatisfactory, maybe safe, way to ski, but it wasn’t why I became a downhiller,” she says.