Ski Sunday is back and will be celebrating its 40th anniversary

Ski Sunday is back on 10 December for its 40th season of action on snow.

And as anticipation grows towards next year's Winter Olympics in South Korea, the programme will feature British and international medal hopes including Dave Ryding, Katie Ormerod and James Woods.
The Ski Sunday crew have highlighted what they are most looking forward to in this series.

Graham Bell

For me, the highlight of any Ski Sunday series is Kitzbuhel. It's the biggest race of the year, an incredible downhill on the Hahnenkamm course and the toughest challenge in alpine racing. However, this season, I'm going to get all nostalgic and pick something very different.
Ski Sunday is about to turn 40 years old, and to celebrate, the BBC Philharmonic put on a special performance of our iconic theme tune.
I remember sitting glued to the telly on Sunday afternoons waiting to watch my heroes race and for me the Ski Sunday theme tune is the soundtrack to the winter. In fact, rather sadly you might think, it is the ringtone on my phone!

Listening to it played live with the orchestra in full flow was a real privilege. Sadly, the original composer, Sam Fonteyn, died in 1991, but I met up with his son, Nic, and learnt a little more about how and when the track was written.
Sam was a staff composer for music publishers Boosey and Hawkes, and Pop Looks Bach was one of hundreds of singles he wrote, never knowing where or when they would be used.
It came as a complete surprise when he heard it on television. Forty years later, social media tells us every week that the theme tune is as popular as ever - what better way to start the series, and celebrate a very special birthday.

Chemmy Alcott

In all that time, Ski Sunday has never been able to celebrate a British winner in a World Cup race - but that might be about to change.
My old team-mate Dave Ryding took an amazing second in the Kitzbuhel slalom in January, and he came really close to going one better in the season-opener in Levi last month. I have been to catch up with him where it all began - an extremely modest dry slope in what he affectionately calls the Lancashire Alps.

Back in Dave's day, the greatest challenge Pendle presented were the grazing sheep he had to slalom his way around. They've since put up fences to keep the run clear, but to think that he's come from racing on flat toothbrush to the steep icy pitches on the World Cup, and is challenging for medals, is pretty incredible really.
Encouragingly, Dave still sees room for improvement in his technique and results. I know how hard he works and I'm quietly confident we might see that first British World Cup win this year, and who knows, maybe an Olympic medal too. It's really, really exciting. Come on Dave.

Jenny Jones

Team GB have a few Olympic medal contenders on the freestyle side too, and probably the best chance lies with snowboarder Katie Ormerod. She's going to ride slopestyle and in big air, the competition making its debut at the Winter Olympics.

I remember Katie when she was about eight years old and already super talented. She always had a bag of sweeties in her pocket! Now she's all grown up and things are getting really serious for her, and I have been to spend a few days with her in a training camp in Switzerland.
It's a really awkward time just before a big competition. You want to push yourself, learn new tricks and progress your riding, but the last thing you want is to get injured and miss out altogether.
Katie was so, so close to making the team to go to the Winter Olympics in Sochi four years ago and not making it took her a while to get over. She's still only 20 and will hopefully have a couple more Olympics left in her, but I think this is her time.