On the way to races, the children in the Carrick-Smith family would crochet. Their grandmother had taught them the basic stitches, and they filled the hours on the road making hats, scarves and toy animals, which they then sold to buy skis or surfboards. In December 2018, when PlanetSKI visited them in Tignes, France, Luca was thirteen and twins Zak and Freddy were eleven. Their mother, Emma Carrick-Anderson, welcomed a hobby that kept them happily occupied as the family travelled from one ski resort to another.
On Sunday, Freddy finished twelfth in the World Cup giant slalom in Sölden, Austria. He and Zak are now nineteen, while Luca is twenty-one. Behind all three are Emma, a four-time Olympian, and their father, Phil Smith. Together, they form a team in which coaching, preparing equipment, organising travel and finding money for the next race are family responsibilities. Freddy’s result marks another chapter in a story that began long before their first international starts.
Five people and a bathroom that became an office
When Luca was born, they lived in Scotland and travelled to France each winter to teach skiing. As their family grew, those journeys became more complicated, so they decided to settle in the Alps. The cost of living in a ski resort meant downsizing: they moved from a five-bedroom house to, at one stage, a one-bedroom flat shared by all five. “We used the bathroom as an office,” Phil recalled in a 2021 interview with King’s InterHigh. He also remembered his sons first putting on skis at around two and a half: Luca loved competing, Freddy surprised him with his footwork, and Zak had their hearts in their mouths as he headed straight down a slope.
Family arrangements evolved alongside the boys. Emma and Phil alternated their weeks as instructors at Snoworks so they could coach their children. School absences required permission; private tutors followed, with lessons at home and in hotels, before they eventually moved to online schooling. The family calendar accommodated training and travel, but they also tried to keep one day a week for skiing together without preparing for a race. That combination of work, education and mountain life allowed all five to keep enjoying the sport around which they had built their lives.
Fifteen pairs of skis and a cooking rota
Their parents eventually became full-time coaches and ski technicians. In January, Emma described to PlanetSKI a day that began on the slopes, continued with video analysis and included at least three hours in the ski room. Each athlete used five pairs of skis that needed preparing. Then came bookings, travel arrangements and grocery shopping. Cooking duties had to be shared: the brothers took turns because their parents could no longer manage everything. “It really is a team now,” Emma said.
The budget also has to cover five people. Emma put the previous year’s programme costs at £220,000, with Phil and herself taking barely enough to cover the mortgage. The trip to Levi, Finland, cost £12,000 despite the parents driving for four days to save money while the boys flew. Two races in the United States were ruled out: sending Freddy with a coach would have cost another £17,000. Sponsors supplied equipment, while donations helped pay for the rest. At the end of December 2025, they had enough funding to last only until January 15, before a benefactor’s support gave them room to continue.
Celebrating and hurting in the same race
In March, the Junior World Championships in Narvik, Norway, brought their most difficult mix of emotions. Luca led the slalom after the first run, Freddy was second and Zak tenth. On the decisive run, Luca extended his advantage, but a mistake around ten gates from the finish put him out. Freddy took silver; Zak finished twentieth despite a back problem and went to congratulate his twin. “Several hearts broke at that moment, including ours,” Emma said. The same family had a medal to celebrate and a victory they had watched slip away.
September 2 brought a very different photograph at Coronet Peak, New Zealand: Luca first, Zak second and Freddy third. The brothers occupied every place on the podium in an international slalom. There was even another coincidence between the twins, who recorded exactly the same second-run time: 44.98 seconds. After so many years of training together, their individual careers had brought them into a family picture that the International Ski and Snowboard Federation -FIS- highlighted for its rarity.
Three paths within the same team
Sharing parents, training sessions and journeys still leaves room for different interests. As a teenager, Luca had started a clothing brand, Traax, and talked about a future in business; Zak imagined travelling to make films and take photographs. They have also found ways to accommodate each other’s sporting ambitions: in December 2025, Freddy explained that the twins had agreed to focus on different disciplines at that time, himself on giant slalom and Zak on slalom, given the possibility of competing for limited places. His preference for coaches, however, was clear: “I would never want to be coached by someone else other than my parents,” he told SW Londoner.
When the boys were still children, Emma explained that those days of free skiing helped them escape the intensity of racing. “For me and Phil, it’s just important that they are passionate about skiing,” she said. In the photographs from that time, the three boys appear with their crochet creations; years later, they stand together on a podium. Between those pictures lie shared flats, lessons on the road, skis to prepare and meals cooked in turns: the everyday life of a family still travelling through the winter together.
Last related articles
