Out of all my Olympic experience, it was at my final Games as an athlete, Nagano 1998, that I really fell for a destination. The resort of Hakuba has been firmly on my bucket list to revisit ever since – lured by the culture, food and powder snow of Japan. With snow-sport fever set to sweep the nation, I feel I owe it to myself to make it happen, once borders reopen, on my own Olympic-inspired escape.
Amazing holidays inspired by the Winter Olympics
Downhill skiing
Val d’Isère and Méribel, France
For British skiers, the most accessible Winter Olympics of yesteryear is the 1992 event, which used the French Alps as an epic playground. Albertville was the nominal host, but the blue-riband downhill skiing competitions took place up and away to the south-east. Val d’Isère showcased the men on the newly created Bellevarde piste. Meanwhile, Méribel staged the women’s races, on the fiendish Roc de Fer run.
How to do it: Inghams (inghams.co.uk) offers breaks to both resorts. A one-week stay at Val d’Isère’s five-star Residence Chalet Skadi costs from £1,770pp, self catering, including transfers. A seven-night holiday to the three-star Les Ravines Apartments in Méribel costs from £820, self catering, with transfers.
Snowboarding
Laax, Switzerland
If you prefer your snowboarding to involve the ramps, decks and tricks of the half-pipe, there is perhaps but one choice of destination for a winter holiday. Laax is home to the world’s largest example of this extreme-sports staple: an adrenalin-stirring contraption so vast – 6.9 metres high, 22 metres wide, and 200 metres long – that the Swiss resort’s website (flimslaax.com) describes it as a “big beast”.
