I was born on June 22nd 1994 and I put on my first pair of skis in December 1996 whilst on holiday with my parents in Obergurgl, Austria - I was 2½ years old then and I have loved skiing, snow and winter weather ever since.

Since my father has always been super-keen on skiing, we would take skiing holidays for the New Year, during February ½ term and at Easter. In January 2007 I spent a term at Aiglon College, a British boarding school in Villars, Switzerland where PE, in the winter, takes the form of skiing and where my desire to race was ignited. I was selected for the Aiglon College ski team and took part in a few local races there, I came home wanting to do more of it and found a race training coach working at the Tamworth Snowdome. My first real race was at the Welsh Championships in Champery, Switzerland in January 2008.

In the UK I used to train with Ski MK Race Team in Milton Keynes and I also regularly trained with the British Ski Academy based in Les Houches, France. In 2010, I spent a couple of months during the summer holidays in New Zealand and Australia where I trained and continued my FIS racing.

At school, I did better than I had dared hope for in my GCSE examinations and also in my A levels which I completed in June 2013. I attended King Edward VI Handsworth School and my old headmistress, Dr Elspeth Insch, who has now retired, kindly allowed me to study for my A levels over 3 years rather than 2 so that I could commit myself 100% to ski racing in the winter.

In February 2011 I was very proud to represent Ireland at the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival held in Liberec, Czech Republic. I had a really wonderful time at the EYOWF - it was a great experience.

http://www.olympicsport.ie/youth-games/eyof-liberec/3872-bell-performs-well-in-slalom.html

On July 5th 2011 I was extremely proud to be crowned my school's first ever Sports Personality of the Year! It was an honour to be chosen, in spite of stiff competition from very talented girls who represented Great Britain and England, respectively, in rhythmic gymnastics and badminton and who were also nominated.

I spent the summer of 2011 back in Wanaka, in the south island of New Zealand, where I trained with TCRA and where I managed to lower my points to 127 in Slalom and 131 in GS.

In September 2011 I joined the FIS Alpine Training Camp. We trained in Austria and Italy. I enjoyed my time training with them, made some very good friends and improved my skiing; reducing my Slalom points to 109 and my GS points to 119.

With my school, I competed in the British Schoolgirls' Races in Flaine. As a school team, we were ecstatic to win the GS competition and we came 3rd in the Slalom. Personally, I got a 3rd place in GS and was 3rd Overall in Jnr 2.

In March 2012 I travelled to Roccaraso in Italy in order to compete for Ireland in the Junior Alpine World Championships. I was proud to carry the flag at the opening ceremony and, when there, I had my photo taken with Italian Slalom legend, Alberto Tomba.

In April 2012 my last races of the 2011/2012 season were in Marunuma and Okutadami in Japan where I competed in Slalom races. I was extremely pleased to score well and to end the season on 88 Slalom FIS points.

The 2012/2013 season started well with my 3rd summer training spent in New Zealand. I was at the peak of fitness when I was there and the training was exceptional. Things continued to go well and I was chosen for the 2nd year in a row to be part of the FIS Development Team. However, my training came to a very abrupt and painful halt at the end of October 2012 when I broke my foot during dry-land training!. This set me back very badly and I was not back on the snow until mid-December when I began with some very tentative runs.

As a result of the set back with my broken foot, I decided to concentrate my efforts on GS for the rest of the season and was delighted to reap the rewards for this by reducing my GS points by almost half to 66 (from 119). I have struggled with Slalom because of the "turny" nature of the discipline which has been difficult whilst my foot has been recovering so I was pleased that I was able to bring my Slalom points down to 80. This means that I am in second position, behind my sister, in terms of having the lowest FIS points out of the Irish racers.

At the 2013 British Schoolgirls Races in Flaine, we were thrilled beyond belief to win 3 out of the 4 trophies available for the school to win and, individually, I won the Overall title for my age group, in so-doing, winning the British Car Registrations Cup. One of the absolute highlights of the season was representing Ireland at the World Alpine Ski Championships in Schladming, Austria. The atmosphere was electric and it was a fantastic experience for me.

My 2012/2013 season was topped-off by the amazing news that I was awarded an Olympic Scholarship!!! This award was made by the International Olympic Committee to a small number of athletes who they believed had the potential of being chosen by their Country to compete at the Olympic Games. I received substantial funding towards equipment, travel and coaching for a total of 15 months from November 2012 leading up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in February 2014.

The 2013/2014 season began, for me, in New Zealand, where I spent 3 months in the summer, training and racing. Having completed my A levels and left school in June 2013, I was able to devote all of my attention to being a full time, professional ski racer! I was disappointed not to be selected to represent Ireland at the Sochi Winter Olympics since this had been my goal. There was only one place available for a female and there was some consolation in that place being given to my sister, Florence.

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