Finlay Mickel (born 6 December 1977) is a Scottish skiing coach and former downhill skier who competed in World Cup competitions 2000–2009 and the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Downhill skier

Mickel was born on 6 December 1977 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was educated at

Stewart's Melville College Stewart's Melville College (SMC) is all-boys' Private schools in the United Kingdom, private day school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Classes are all boys in the 1st to 5th years and co-educational in Sixth (final) year. It has a roll of about 750 p ...

. He first appeared in the World Cup in Lake Louise, Canada in November 2000. His best result in the World Cup was 10th in the Wengen downhill event in Switzerland, in January 2006. On 5 February 2005, he finished eleventh in the Men's Downhill event at the World Championships held in

Bormio Bormio (, , ) is a town and ''comune'' with a population of about 4,100 located in the Province of Sondrio, Lombardy region of the Alps in northern Italy. The centre of the upper Valtellina valley, it is a popular winter sports resort. It was the ...

, Italy. This was the best result by a British man in the history of the World Championships, and the best in any major competition since

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war Journalist, reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Ta ...

finished eighth in the downhill at the

1988 Winter Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Calgary 1988 were a multi-sport event held from February 13 to 28, 1988, with Calgary, Calgary, Alberta as the main host city. This marks the m ...

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

. In the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

in 2006 he finished 25th in the downhill event and 22nd in the

super G Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel Ski binding, bindings, unlike other types of skiing (Cros ...

event.

Injuries and retirement

Mickel sustained several injuries during his career including a fractured left ankle, a ruptured right Achilles tendon, a right ankle fracture, and a fracture to his right tibia plateau. Although he recovered from each of these setbacks, after being a member of the British Alpine ski team for 12 years, he announced his retirement from the sport in May 2009 at the age of 31. He took up a coaching position with the Scottish Alpine Team.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mickel, Finlay 1977 births Living people Skiers from Edinburgh Scottish male alpine skiers Alpine skiers at the 2006 Winter Olympics Olympic alpine skiers for Great Britain People educated at Stewart's Melville College Alpine skiing coaches