An oxymoron: Flat-out: Hirscher boosts skiing in mountainless Netherlands

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The mercury hits six degrees below freezing and the snow crunches underfoot as the ski-school kids carve down the piste towards the button lift. Yet many of them have never seen a mountain.

This is not some Alpine ski station but a huge hangar on stilts just off the motorway in Zoetermeer, in the west of the Netherlands -- one of the flattest countries on earth with a highest peak of... 322 metres (1,056 feet).

Despite outdoor temperatures of more than 20 degrees on the May day AFP visited the SnowWorld indoor ski slope, many Dutch were happy to ditch the nearby beach for ski goggles and helmets.

Well-known for producing world-class speed skaters, the Dutch are also huge fans of skiing despite a cruel dearth of natural slopes.

No other country boasts as many indoor ski centres per capita -- seven facilities for 18 million -- according to Herbert Cool, spokesman for the Dutch Skiing Federation (NSkiV).

The Netherlands also offers more than 15 artificial ski slopes and 60 ski carpets to work on technique, he added.

And Cool hopes the return to competition of Austrian downhill ski legend Marcel Hirscher in the Dutch colours of his mother will only turbo-charge the sport's popularity.

"It's Marcel, it's Marcel," squeals one young girl watching a ski instructor schuss down the slope at top speed.

It wasn't the former world number one, but it could well have been. "He came here not long ago," recalls Mandy van der Vlist, who staffs the equipment hire desk.

When Hirscher, one of the greatest skiers of all-time, came to borrow a ski tip, she didn't recognise him and asked if he could ski.

"Ooops. What an idiot!" chuckles Van der Vlist, 25, who has been working at SnowWorld for three years.

- 'Source of inspiration' -

"Winter sports are very popular here. 1.1 million Dutch head to the Alps every year," Cool told AFP.

"It's part of Dutch culture to go to the snow at least one week a year. It's fun and we don't mind travelling a bit to have fun," he added.

When the federation first heard that Hirscher, who has won multiple Olympic and World Championship golds, planned to race under the Dutch flag, they thought it was a joke.

But when it was confirmed, they realised what a gift they had been given.

"We are getting someone with not only an incredible career in terms of trophies but also a source of inspiration," said Cool, a 39-year-old former biathlete.

"We hope that the pool of talent we can dip into to train high-level athletes will grow when children see Marcel Hirscher skiing for the Netherlands at the Olympics or World Championships," he said.

Not everyone is a Hirscher fan though. "Don't know him," said Piotr, a Polish man who has lived in the Netherlands for 15 years, as he reached the ski lift with his son Jan.

They are tackling the facility's only red run, 300 metres long with a 20-percent descent -- "the steepest indoor ski slope in Europe," boasts the centre, which also offers two blue runs and a green.

"It's good here, but there are more slopes in the mountains," said Jan, 12.

"Well, compared to skiing in the mountains it gets a bit boring after two hours but it's 20 minutes from the place we live so it's a nice opportunity," said his father, a 45-year-old scientist who declined to give his surname.

- 'Giant fridge' -

Patricia Cregten-Escobar, a 43-year-old originally from Colombia and married to a Dutchman, first learned to ski at the SnowWorld centre.

"I love skiing and I've been coming here almost every day for the last six months," she said. "I'm well kitted out, I have heated gloves."

Outside the centre, as the sun beats down on the car park with outdoor fitness fans, skiers stuff their coats, hats and gloves in the boot.

Patricia concedes it's a bit "bizarre" to ski indoors at a time when the spotlight is on the sport for its impact on the climate.

"SnowWorld works very hard on sustainability, notably by trying to make all its activity carbon neutral" via solar panels, said Herbert Cool.

"But the fact is that we're in a giant fridge here and it's 20 degrees outside."