On January 20 2010, Rose achieved an historic victory when he won the IPCAS World Cup in the downhill race in Sestriere and in doing so became the first British skier ever to claim a gold medal in the event.

The 38-year-old former Royal Air Force Physical Training Instructor from Cambridgeshire finished almost a second in front of Japan’s Akira Kano in the race in the Italian Alps and revealed his joy at his selection.

Rose said: “I am delighted to be selected to represent my country at the Paralympic Games as it is the highest honour an athlete can receive.

“My first Paralympics in Turin were a great experience and it is fantastic now to be going to Whistler with real medal potential.

“All the hard work in the summer has paid off.

“I had a great start to the season, am on good form and I’m really looking forward to the main event”.

Rose is joined in the team by Russell Docker, a veteran of two Paralympic Winter Games, as well as four newcomers to the Paralympic team: Talan Skeels-Piggins, Anna Turney, Jane Sowerby and youngest ParalympicsGB team member Tim Farr.

Phil Lane, Chief Executive of ParalympicsGB said: “I am delighted to announce that six skiers will represent ParalympicsGB at the Paralympic Winter Games.

“Following the success we had in Beijing, there has been more and more public interest in Britain’s Paralympians and we hope that the British public will support our Winter Paralympic team as much as they did our highly successful summer team.

“It is fantastic that we are in a position to announce such a large alpine skiing team. It reflects not only the quality of our athletes but also the dedication of the staff at the British Disabled Ski Team and the support that ParalympicsGB have been able to provide, for example, winter camps and access to technical services for the skiers.”

Dave Chugg, Team Manager, said: “I am really pleased that so many of our skiers have been selected for the Paralympic Winter Games.

“We expect the competition to be extremely tough, but we also know how hard our athletes have trained and we are confident they will do well.”

The announcement follows the team selection for curling in January and completes the line-up of the ParalympicsGB team that will compete in Vancouver.

The curling team was named earlier with Michael McCreadie (skip), Tom Killin, Angela Malone, James Sellar and Aileen Neilson set to try and better the silver medals they claimed at the Turin 2006 Paralympic Winter Games.