Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, Named Patron of Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Team — and Hit the Slopes to Celebrate
Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, was named royal patron of the Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Team on August 10, 2026, and she marked the occasion the way you might expect: by skiing.
The duchess, 61, visited the Snow Centre, an indoor ski facility in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where she watched athletes train on artificial snow, met coaches and volunteers, skied the slopes herself, and even tried target practice with a laser rifle — all in the middle of an August heatwave (Town & Country).
The Armed Forces Para-Snowsport Team, known as AFPST, supports wounded, injured, and sick serving military personnel and veterans through adaptive skiing, snowboarding, and Nordic skiing — the cross-country discipline that includes rifle marksmanship, which explains the laser rifle Sophie tried on the slopes.
The organization's current projects carry real ambition. Project Vidda will send a team of amputee veterans on an unsupported Arctic expedition across Norway's Vidda plateau. Project Vidda's predecessor in scope, Project Volya, sent instructors to Ukraine to train ski and snowboard coaches alongside 24 Ukrainian veterans in the Carpathian Mountains (Town & Country).
A royal patronage — the British term for when a member of the royal family lends their name and visibility to a charity or organization — is partly ceremonial and partly a spotlight. The AFPST announced the appointment on its official Instagram account, noting Sophie's visit to the Snow Centre to mark the occasion (AFPST Instagram).
For Sophie, the new role sits squarely in territory she already knows. She is patron of British Wheelchair Basketball, England Hockey, the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association, and the British Cycling Federation. She has held the patronage of Mencap, the UK's leading learning disability charity, since 2004. She is also patron of the UK Armed Forces Winter Sports Association, the broader body that governs military winter sports competition — a role that took her to Méribel, France, in February 2024 (royal.uk).
Her husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, has served as patron of the British Paralympic Association since 2003. Earlier this year, the couple traveled together to Italy to support athletes at the 2026 Paralympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina (Town & Country).
What makes the pairing click is the overlap. Sophie already holds the winter-sports and military portfolios across several patronages. AFPST sits exactly where those two worlds meet — adaptive sport, service members, and snow.
The duchess did not just accept a title and pose for photographs. She put on skis, picked up a rifle, and spent time with the people the organization serves. For a charity whose athletes train to cross an Arctic plateau on prosthetic limbs, that kind of hands-on attention matters more than a name on a letterhead.
