Freestyle skier Murray is one of our major medal prospects for the future, but how hard is it to be one of Briatain's best at 15?

Remember when you were fifteen?  Or maybe you are fifteen.  What goes through a fifteen year old’s mind on a daily basis?  ‘I forgot to do my homework; I want those jeans; My parents are sooo dull; I quite fancy the person sitting opposite me in chemistry.’  You probably aren’t thinking: ‘To become the best in the world I need to pull off a switch seven truck driver and land perfectly.’  In fact, it is probably quite accurate to say that in all of Scotland, there is probably only one fifteen year old who is thinking that precise thought.  And his name is Murray Buchan.

Firrhill High School student Murray has been competing, and winning, on the competitive freestyle skiing circuit since he was 11.  He is a genuine British medal hope for the Olympics, be that at Vancouver 2010, when he will still only be 18, or later.  Though at the rate he is going in 2007, it’s a shame the coveted event can’t come sooner. 

Just last month (March) he finished second overall in the Half-pipe and third overall in the Big Air at the British Freestyle Championships, and in the last year Murray has won the Indoor Slopestyle Championship in Glasgow, the British Big Air Dry Slope Championship and the British Quarter-pipe Championship. 

Seeing that these are all competitions in which he competes against adults, it is scary to think what Murray can achieve when his body is fully developed.  In most sports; football, rugby, athletics, tennis; a male athlete won’t be considered fully developed until their late teens, and are referred to as ‘kids’ or ‘boys’ until their early twenties (though Sir Alex Ferguson still refers to Ryan Giggs as a boy, and he is 33!) 

So, by that logic, Murray, already sponsored by Line Skis and Nike ACG, has almost a decade before he is even expected to compete with the big boys.  And he has his entire lifespan to live again before he reaches 30, which is seen as the traditional drop off period for sportsmen, though as sports science progresses, careers seem to have more longevity than ever.

For now though, the prodigious Edinburgh freestyler is quite happy to keep on practising, working hard at his studies, and enjoying his teenage years.  No doubt his classmates are jealous though.  Spending several weeks of the year practising in the parks and flying high in competitions around the world, his life is somewhat different to most of the kids he is at school with. But he doesn’t let his enviable position go to his head:  “Well I miss out on school, but not on school work.  I do think it’s important to catch up on school work even if you’re not there, because if skiing doesn’t happen then I need something to fall back on.”

The youngster obviously sports a maturity to match his talent, something which is becoming more and more important for up and coming athletes, particularly in a sport where he himself could become a role model for thousands of other hopefuls before he progresses beyond his teens.

The good news is that Murray is well on his way to fulfilling that role without too many hitches, as he currently cites the advice and tutelage of another (older) teenager as one of the contributing factors to his success.  Paddy Graham, 19, is a fellow Brit freestyler who competes and trains with Murray in the snow, under the guidance of Chris Asquith, himself only 28.

“They work me pretty hard.  We’ll get up around 8am, train all morning then stop for lunch and then train for most of the afternoon.  They don’t ease up until the end of the day, so maybe around 3pm we’ll have a bit of fun, but from early morning until then it’s hard work, with no breaks. Chris is good because he knows me so well. He’s known me since I was 10 and knows my capability.”

Meanwhile, back in sunny (compared to high altitude mountain resorts) Edinburgh, Murray trains with snowboard enthusiast and entrepreneur Scott Todd. “It may sound funny that being a skier I train with a snowboard coach, but he gives me the discipline I need and wouldn’t otherwise have in Edinburgh” says Murray. “I train once a week with him but I do a lot of running and play a lot of rugby with Boroughmuir RFC, so that keeps me in shape too.”

And he says that the influence of these older figures, and a strong, trusting relationship with them, is probably one of the most important factors in his progression as a world class freestyle skier.  “If I trained with someone I don’t like I’d go into shutdown mode and not really listen to what they are saying and not pay attention so much.  It’s exactly the same as school – if you have a bad teacher you don’t really want to learn so much.  But since I train pretty much with people that I like all the time I learn quite a lot.”

Murray continued by discussing the specific ways in which he learns from his coaches and the others he trains with: “I learn a lot from watching Dan Wakeham [the British Snowboard Olympian].  Even though he’s a snowboarder he still has some ideas to help me and improve my skiing, so I train with him sometimes.  When he’s out he’ll give me pointers and stuff, he’s a really good guy.  He knows when I’m not really feeling it or when I’m not really in the mood, so he won’t tell me to do things I don’t like.”

It is obvious to see how importance the positive influence of older, more experienced members of a team can be in developing a young athlete.  Their influence is crucial.  Not that Murray is shy in doing his own thing.  And, speaking of which, just what on earth is a switch seven truck driver?  “A switch seven truck driver is when you take off backwards and then you do two 360s while grabbing both skis five inches in front of the bindings on the outsides of your skis.”

For the sake of this article, and your heads as you would get dizzy simply trying to read a standard English translation, the easiest way to understand what Murray is on about (and very good at) is to imagine him going off a very high ramp at a very high speed, backwards, grabbing his skis and spinning around twice before landing (backwards) again.  
By the sounds of that, managing to balance at all, let alone balance a schoolboy’s lifestyle with that of an elite athlete, is a pretty impressive feat for Murray.  But he has taken it all in his stride.  The world better watch out.

RO

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