The Funniest Names in Winter Sports

Spanish skier from the mid 2000's who wasn't quite as good on the FIS world cup circuit as his name suggested.

Young Italian skier, sister of fellow Italian Niccolo Angriman. Also related to Mario Fuming. Probably.

Sounding more like the name of a character that got slightly lost in translation during the Spanish-language version of the Lord of the Rings, rather than a Spanish slalom specialist from the late 1990s.

There's been a surprisingly large amount of Armbrusters in the world of ski-racing, and American Hayley is the cream of the Armbruster crop. We were originally told she was called Armbuster, which to be fair sounds even better.

Sounding more like a character from a Beatrix Potter story, rather than a participant from one of world's most exciting sports, American Theodore Badger raced in a number of FIS slalom events in the early 2000's.

Croatian Alpine skier who liked to keep things nice and simple out on the slopes.

Or "Mr Bastard" to you. Forget "Herge's Adventures of Tintin", what the boys and girls at Snow Kings want to read about is "Herve's Adventures of Ski Racing", all about the capers of a French Alpine skiing Bastard in the 90's.

Swiss skier whose late charge stole (see what we've done there ?) a couple of Giant Slalom victories in the 1984-85 World Cup season. And yes, before we get slated, we do know that it's not really how you spell it.

Tea loving skier from New Zealand who competed in the Super G at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Until someone tells us otherwise, we believe that you pronounce Fanny's surname as Shmeller, which is just comedy gold as far as we're concerned. She's a slalom specialist from the German resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for those of you that are interested. And at over 6 foot tall she's one of the tallest Fanny Shmeller's we've ever come across. Old Fanny has achieved now achieved global fame thanks to her legendary appearance with Bradley Walsh on The Chase on ITV.

Skier from the Czech Republic who's had a few stinking runs in her time.

Everyone loves a skiing Fati. And Italian Fillipo is our favourite Fati of all time.

The Swiss skier lived up to his name at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, when he just pipped the legendary Swede Ingemar Stenmark to snatch silver in the Giant Slalom. And if he'd just found another two-tenths of a second and beaten fellow countryman Heini Hemmi he would have been nicknamed Very. Probably.

Great name. Great skier. The Swiss racer claimed silver in both the women's Downhill and the Super Combined at the 2009 World Championships in Val d'Isere and would have been amongst the favourites for gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics but unfortunately missed out due to a hip injury. But Lara's obviously got the stomach for a fight, and came back well afterwards to claim more success on the World Cup ski circuit.

Flying Canadian World Cup skier who missed the 2009-10 season due to an horrific knee injury but fought back well afterwards.

The Italian proved that he was anything but, when he grabbed the bronze medal in the downhill at the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Olympics behind skiing legends of that era, Franz Klammer and Bernhard Russi.

The Japanese skier had a few FIS giant slalom races in the 2004-05 season in Sapporo.

Fantastically-named American legend who won numerous Olympic and World Championship medals (including two golds) during the 1990s before having to retire through injury. Born in the aptly-named village of Triumph, in Idaho, she famously appeared on American kids TV show Sesame Street, when Elmo came across her whilst looking for Peekaboo Street.

Fast-eating Italian skier who raced at a few FIS meetings in the late 90s.

Full name William, he was known to his mates as Willy. Well, probably. The Welsh skier competed in a couple of FIS slalom races in 2009.

Well, what more can we say about this Italian skier who competed in several national races in 2003-2005, apart from "what a top name" ?

The Swedish skier competes with Simona Fartakova in our minds for the top-named skier ending in "a".