The Crush: Vanessa-Mae

We’ve had our eye on Vanessa-Mae, the Singaporean-British violin prodigy, since her Blue Peter debut, when Crush was a similarly precocious pre-teen with far less musical talent (but just as good velvet jackets). It wasn’t cool to like her, but we persevered — convinced that she would one day emerge into a beautiful-slash-popular swan.

And she did, posing topless in angel wings and creating an entirely new sub-genre that no one knew they needed — classical techno. Who didn’t go to a rave in a Hertfordshire forest and dance on a tree stump to her Vivaldi remix? Suddenly Vanessa-Mae was officially Sexy, and we were old enough to fancy her properly, not just wish she’d invite us round to watch Dawson’s Creek and braid our hair.

She fell off the radar a few years ago when we thought she was Myleene Klass, but now we are back behind her as she slaloms into the latest turn in her ‘Who, me? Oh, I’m just one of those people who are good at everything’ career, by becoming an Olympic skier. For Thailand. Sure she’s ranked 3,166th in the world and yes, she only got a place in the competition by rinsing her birth father’s nationality, and any Verbier chalet girl is probably just as swishy on the slopes. But that’s not the point. Vanessa-Mae is the Cool Runnings of Sochi: an underdog with big ambitions. And whether Putin likes it or not, we’re out-and-proud supporters.