Devon snow carver comes second in Italian contest

A Devon sculptor competing for the GB Snow Carving Team helped the squad finish second in an Italian competition.

Pippa Unwin, from South Devon, competed against teams from around the world at the International Snow Sculpture Festival in San Candido at the start of February.

The event formed part of the 2026 Winter Olympics cultural programme, with teams tasked with carving Olympic Fair Play-themed sculptures from snow.

Unwin said she was "delighted" to come second place with her team's depiction of five athletes bursting through the Olympic Rings.

The carvers were given three days to sculpt a 3m-cubed (106ft-cubed) block of snow using only tools, more snow and water.

Teams were tasked with illustrating the theme of fair play and Unwin said the sculpture she designed was "ridiculously complicated".

She said: "It was so difficult to work it out but we did actually do it.

"At about four o'clock on the last day, I was sort of thinking: 'I don't know if it's going to work,' but it did.

"It was a bit rough around the edges, but it was snowing quite a bit, so it covered up the mistakes."

She added: "We came second which is just very exciting because there were some really good ones."

Unwin has spent the last decade going to snow sculpture competitions across the world, from Breckenridge in America to the Dolomite mountains in Italy.

Living in Devon she is unable to practice with snow but, as a stone sculptor by trade, she said carving both was a similar practice.

"Stone is obviously harder and, generally, I'm working much smaller, but it's taking stuff off to create the sculpture, so it's very much the same technique."

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