It is a sport more commonly associated with cosmopolitan Colorado or vibrant Val d'Isere - but now the normally snow-free Durham Dales have produced their first world skiing champion.

PE teacher Jamie Wallace has pipped the best skiers in the world to take the world artificial ski slope championships.

There may be nothing resembling a mountain piste within sight of Jamie's home in Copley Bent, near Butterknowle, Teesdale - but he had now beaten off opposition from Austria, Switzerland and France to capture the title of senior male slalom world champion at the event held in High Wycombe.

He said: "I've always enjoyed skiing on snow, since I went on family holidays to Aviemore in Scotland.

"The ski tutors saw that it came quite naturally to me so I kept it up and try to get abroad to ski in Austria and France as much as possible.

"I've won a few competitions on snow but only really entered the dry slope contest for the possible prize money and good practice, since winning I've decided to take it a bit more seriously and will enter the next big contest that comes along."

To land the title Jamie had to complete two 400m slalom runs and recorded the best aggregate time of 18 seconds, a full second better than second place, to win.

The victory is not the first honour that Jamie, who teaches at Oxclose Secondary School in Washington, has landed having won downhill and slalom titles in France and Austria as a pupil of Staindrop Comprehensive School.

Jamie said: "It was great to win, especially as I was competing against people from countries where they can ski on real snow throughout the winter and they are brought up skiing.

"I hope to do well in the future but the bets thing is that I have great fun, keep fit and it is really exciting skiing of speeds up to 80mph."