A bit about the Briko Team

To view a scanned version of our old Sponsorship pack click here (1.3 Mb pdf file) other promotional material was produced to try to raise further funds for our team and athletes.

The Briko Ski team was formed in March 1997 and continued to exist until the summer of 1998. The formation of the team was lead by Jeremy Knight and involved 3 other Athletes, myself (Al Dargie), Andrew Hallett and Alan Eason. The team was formed primarily due to the frustration caused by the lack of support and direction being offered by the British setup at the time. Both Andrew and I were part of the British Junior Squad at the time and felt the support we were receiving was poor and often ill advised. Jerry Knight had already become actively involved in mine and Andrews training and we sat down at a competition in France to see how we could take it forward to another level. From this we decided to create our own club and subsequent race team. Following the formation of the club we managed to secure the sponsorship of Briko through their British importer.

The sponsorship gave us a unique image within the British setup at the time and within a short space of time we completely dominated the British Rollerski circuit with us winning every race we entered in every category. Well all except one which I entered the week before a World Cup competition as a training race (when the rest of the team were resting) and came second! The three main team members (Jerry Knight, Al Dargie and Andrew Hallett) trained together for the majority of the summer seasons. Typically we worked in training blocks of 4 weeks in the 4 week cycle one week would be spent self training another week we would train at Jerry’s house in Devon and then we would train for two weeks at my house in Aviemore. Training as a team worked very well for us and our results improved greatly. The first year we entered 3 Rollerski World cups and our results got better as the season went on. We however struggled greatly in the winter seasons due to a continuing lack of sponsorship money. In our second summer we continued to excel on the rollerski circuit but with a lack of sponsorship and next to no support from our national governing bodies we decided to go our separate ways. Jerry, Andy and I all went in to retirement with Alan Eason being the only member to continue to ski continuously.

So what are we all doing now?

Jerry Knight has never raced competitively since, myself and Jerry toyed with the idea of a come back a few years ago and did a few weeks training but both our work commitments were too great. Jerry has always and continues to be one of my best friends and confidants, in fact he was my best man at my wedding nearly 2 years ago. Jerry now works as an electrician and occasionally works with me when I do property development work. We often talk at length about skiing and Jerry has indicated that he would be interested in becoming involved in the sport again at a managerial level, however only if the politics of the sport have substantially moved on. I hope that one day people will open up enough to let a lateral thinker like Jerry play the role I know he can in our sport.

Well what have I done since Briko? Well an awful lot actually! After the team split up I stopped skiing and formed my own business specialising in Geographic Information Systems. After about a year I made a return to International Roller skiing and raced for a further 2 seasons on the World Cup circuit where I had the highest results of any British competitor in a formal World cup and narrowly missed qualification for the knock out (top 16 athletes) phase of world cup sprints. Work commitments prevented me from getting any substantial time on snow. I was then approached by Mike Dixon and Vicky Gray from the British Biathlon team asking if I could become involved in the British Biathlon Union Board. I was initially highly sceptical and spent some time discussing with the team, how they thought I could help and where I might be able to make a difference. I was elected to the board in 2000 and served a 3 year term as a director of the British Biathlon Union. One of the initiatives I hoped to take forward whilst I was a BBU director was the creation of a civilian biathlon club based at Glenmore this did not happen due to the cynicism of other board members and the over emphasis on military biathlon. Mike Dixon and I have since created this club (CBNSC) with almost identical aims, objectives and constitution to what I had worked towards several years before. The club now has a large number of young athletes, who I fully anticipate will become the next generation of British biathletes and Nordic skiers.

Andrew Hallett decided to give skiing another go and went on to be a member of the British Biathlon team and raced on the Europa cup circuit for a couple of seasons as well as competing in two junior world championships. I understand that he has taken up a scholarship with a Canadian university and now skis for his university. If anyone has a contact for Andy I would like to catch up and see what he is up to these days.

Alan Eason was the only member of the team to continue skiing without a break. He is now the British Nordic Senior Team Manager and continues to race full time. Credit should be given for his grit and determination to keep going for all these years, however improvements have been limited and seem to fall short of his aspirations of racing on World cup circuit and at the Olympic Games. Hopefully he can find the support that he needs to lift his racing to the next level.