IT’S been over 70 years since a competitor from Huddersfield took to the Winter Olympic slopes.

But as Lindley ski sensation Fiona Hughes prepares to take part in Vancouver 2010, there are memories of a couple of Huddersfield sporting greats from the past.

And no doubt 19-year-old Fiona would be delighted if she could emulate their feats.

For both Jimmy Chappell and Edward Ramsden Hall returned from the Winter Games of the past with gold medals.

Chappell, of Milnsbridge, was an ice hockey player who won his gold medal at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch Partenkirchen.

He scored two goals in the six games he played helping the Great Britain team slide to victory.

The ice hockey player also joined the GB national team in the 1937 and 1938 Ice Hockey World Championships.

The team won silver in the 1937 championships and the gold in the European Championships at the same tournament.

In 1938 they won the silver medal.

Chappell played ice hockey again in 1948 at the Winter Olympics in Switzerland where the GB team finished sixth.

The Huddersfield-born man had emigrated to Canada with his family when he was 10-years-old and learned to play ice hockey in Ontario.

But he still maintained strong links with his home town.

Bobsleigh champion Edward ‘Eddie’ Ramsden Hall was also from Milnsbridge and was born in 1900.

He was an heir to a successful textile business and lived in Kirkburton before moving to Canada in the 1950s.

Eddie was most famous for motor racing but was also part of the gold medal-winning Great Britain two-man and five-man bobsleigh teams at the 1927 European Bobsleigh Championship in St Moritz. He also competed in the 1928 Winter Olympics in the Number 2 Great Britain five-man bobsleigh team which finished ninth overall – ahead of the Number 1 British team.

Fiona, 19, is a Nordic skier and is among a team of 43 athletes representing Team GB in six sports. The Greenhead College student has spent the last 12 months training.

Earlier this year she won the silver medal in the Swiss National championships at Marbach.

She was ranked the top female in the country in the 2008-09 season and last year was chosen as the first woman to represent Great Britain at the World Nordic Ski Championships.

Fiona will ski in Whistler, one of the two main ski venues in Vancouver.

Tragedy overshadowed the opening ceremony in Vancouver when Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, died after a high-speed crash in training.