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Given the imbalance in budgets between the winter and summer games Maybe Britains winter athletes should look at citizenship options in more winter games friendly coutries! 3-4% of the olympic budget it would appear is spent on the winter games. The decision makers should go away and hang their heads in shame.

Millions of pounds is being thrown into sports such as baseball, handball and many others ahead of the London games because we can automatically qualify as hosts.

In the mean time British skiers and boarders of all disciplines who regularly compete with the best in the world and manage to meet the tough qualification criteria of the winter Olympics to earn the chance to compete are left out in the cold.


What was that about supporting athletes with chances of success?

If you can't afford it then do something else, thats what the rest of us are faced with.

Its not like they become very sucessful, make a load of cash and hand it back to us ever......

It was sad that the GB&I team were so poorly let down by the now- defunct governing body: I think we need to look at the way money is raised for our athletes - especially for winter sports. We were in Vancouver in January and there were quite a number of stores selling Canada team winter gear (and US team clothing aswell) and yet I don't think I noticed any stores at home selling the GB&I equivalent. Some of the funds raised from sales could have gone to the athletes.
My wife and I are always glued to the TV when winter sports are shown and this olympics was really special to us as we ski in Whistler every year. However it's because of the aforementioned lack of funding that there were so may events where we just don't 'compete'. Other than Shelley and the defence of the skeleton silver medal, there wasn't much more publicity in the news.
I think the support they had from the BOA should be available to them all year round - it's a matter of long-term return on investment not always the quick pay back.

Its very hard to try and convince the tax payer to fund sports people in the current environment. The news that over 20,000 people will lose their public sector jobs puts a lot of things into perspective - how can you justify throwing millions more at winter sports when people in ordinary walks of life are having to suffer with unemployment and everyday financial hardship.

Beach volleyball is a bad comparison. Volleyball is a global mass participation sport, and is growing strongly in the UK. We have the ability and are currently coach volleyball from a young age. We have a much better chance of being competitive in volleyball.

I love skiing and would love to see GB doing well. But the fact is we can never do mass participation at school age like they can in mainland Europe and America. The best we can hope for is get the best of the young talent and school/coach them in Europe/America. But that will take big bucks.

Where does the tax payer come into this?

UK Sport decide how lottery funding should be distributed.

If the 'money men' only allocate funds to the sports that are doing well and they will have their work cut out as far as Vancouver is concerned, then surely this is the wrong approach.
If a particular sport is doing badly, say skiing, then surely it's because it is drastically underfunded already. Perhsps some would say not all disciplines can be supported, but why not? That should not be an issue for the competitors, their attention should be elsewhere. It is for the 'money men' themselves, not just to dish it out but to be proactive in finding ways of generating more funding and sponsorship.

If Britain do any worse in the next olypmics it would be a disgrace, someone needs to realise that we stand NO chance off getting ANYTHING from vollyball and other sports in the summer olympics and realise would can do alright in many of the winter olypmic sports! come on, as the_chief15 said, why doesnt the tax payer get a say? come on, if curling and other British participants had performed there best we could have made top 10 countries!

The Winter Olympic Team did not do that bad in comparison with our other sports teams when you compare the money spent.

Despite the milions spent at every level every year how many International class batsmen has the ECB U-19 set-up provided the England cricket team in the last 10 years? 4. Cook, Bopari, Denly & Bell (Strauss etc fall outside the timeline). The rest were provided by South Africa. Despite the many, many millions spent England have never won the World Cup, never threatened in the last 4 and look more and more like the South African 'B' side.

The football team has never won a tournament in over 40 years (hopes are fading fast for the summer) & over the last 15-20 years there has been millions/billions spent on football in this country. All we have been left with is a bunch of players with a collective ring tone of "You're so Vain".

The England rugby team has more back-up staff, is more highly paid than any other in the world and yet after the highs of winning the World Cup in 2003 they managed to retreat at such a rate of knots they almost sailed off the edge of the World. Yes they reached the Final in 2007 but the reason Steve Borthwick is bald is because he has been scratching is head trying to figure out how they managed it.

So did we do badly not really. The winter sports facilities in this country are mince - few curling rinks, or skating rinks for speed skaters, Glen Shee is hardly Les Trois Vallees (trust me).
The womens team are young are 7th in the World and finished 7th so no real surprise. However, these girls will improve 3 out of 4 are below the age of 30 & will be around for at least the next 1, 2 or 3 Olympics. The Bobsleigh could have been better but it was a difficult track & they had very little preparation.

So if we want more from the Winter Team give them Summer budget... Or cut the budget for cricket if we get humped 5-0 again Down Under (just hire some more Boks I suppose would be the answer there)

The crucial point here is the thousands of Austrian teenagers (and Swiss, French, Italian, US & Canadian) skiing at a high level. A handful break through to World Cup level. Realistically, you need a talent pool that deep in order to have a high probability of championship medals. Supporting that many would cost millions, given the lack of facilities in the UK. Without that depth of talent, you can get some way by channeling your funding to your best people, but in all probability they'll still come up short.

By contrast, if you fund sports that are minority pursuits everywhere - such as skeleton - you're on a much more level playing field. It's not as though Austrian teenagers are doing that every weekend in their tens of thousands.

Realistically, consistent success is not going to be an option for the UK in mass-participation winter sports. Maybe the strategy should be directing funding intensively towards people who look as though they have a realistic chance of success. Such people crop up only a couple of times a decade. This means, sadly, cutting adrift people who - with appropriate support and funding - might be able to score the occasional World Cup point, but no more.

Sorry but Skiing in this country will always be an elitist sport because of the travel required. Our sports funding should be channelled into sports that we can do here in the UK, relatively cheaply because it is these sports that the general public are going to be able to actually go out and participate in and that is where the payback comes in.

If we fund Skiing and get a gold medallist then great but then what? will the thousands of kids who see it and want to do the same actually be able to go out and try it? No they won't, because we don't have ski resorts so they will just forget about it. Contrast that with funding other minority sports such as archery, shooting, badminton and karate which just about anyone can find a local club and get started without any investment in terms of money or travel, success here would bring much more people to sport than skiing ever will.

On the rare occasions Brits have success, by and large in elitist low-participation sports that rely heavily on investment, equipment and technology (rowing, cycling, sailing, f1, skeleton), nobody talks about money then. About the role the superior funding and equipment played in their success and the principal advantage it gave them over their competitors. Everyone is going on about how competent the sportsmen have been individually, how much effort they put in and how we should all be proud of their superiority.

So, since you can't have double standards and now that they are failing spectacularly change your stance and put the blame on money, it's not about that but about inferior commitment, attitude, intelligence, mental strength and individual ability I'm afraid.

Archery, Shooting and Badminton already receive sums vastly greater than skiing.

As for access to try skiing, with 56 dry slopes and 5 indoor snow centres across the uk it isn't as hard as it seems.

I never get this idea that we should forget skiing as we can't do it at home. Its not like we're anywhere near an athletics nation are we?even after how much funding over the last 10 years. In fact ironically the more funding we've put in the worse the results.

Also contrary to the funding programme, how many people yearly play volleyball, go shooting, competitive archery or even row every year?

The UK skiing industry is huge and without it many Alpine resorts would really struggle. Success could help fund British skiing and modernise Scottish ski resorts which could then again support further growth.

There are small nations starting to compete in Alpine events because they have a modern and rational approach and funding. The growing strength of the Balkan nations are evidence to this and they do it on a modest budget compared to the major nations.

Further to this, the Dutch and Belgians invested is large and cost effective indoor ski domes over 10 years ago and their technical teams are getting stronger and stronger and will have representitives in the top 30 regularly soon.

I don't often agree with Graham but he's right. It takes 15 years to get an Olympic athlete and the reason we don't have a successful ski team is the same as tennis but without the money. We just always look for the short term reward and never develop and long standing structure like successful nations like Australia, who even beat us in skiing too.

Personally I can understand medal chasing but we should concentrate as well on the Blue Riband sports regardless which is Skiing not speed skating, figure skating, aerials... Besides I think being in the top 30 even in a small world of skiing with even Olympic restrictions on competitors is not of merit people need some perspective.

I am glad no one on this blog has personalised it as some do aiming at individual athletes and a series of one off performances which is not significant enough to be a sample size to judge on. You can never tell when or if someone will put it together - Williams had never won an event and the only clue going in was her 2nd here last year in the World's and the fact she tended to train better than she slid in competition, yet she won as a dominant athlete would, grabbing the lead and in the crucial 3rd run slamming the door so badly the then 2nd risked too much chasing in the final slide.

In the big sports we have to have the structures when the once a generation talent comes along. After all we've won Bobsleigh world championships and 3 medals in Skeletons in recent times and no one could have called that when I was growing up.

One thing that is clear in all sports concentrating on the women's side ala the old GDR will bring more medals. If we don't do it others will and the window of opportunity will close as the competitiveness of the sports closes between the sexes.

The combimation of a lack of cash and complete lack of success is difficult to argue against. The reality of the situation is the GB Winter Sport faces the same financial problems as many individuals. Sometimes you have to "cut your coat according to the length of cloth" just lime the rest of us and give up doing things that you can no longer afford to do.

Success breeds success, consistant mediocrity breeds indifference.
As painful and unpleasant as that is, that's the reality of life.
I trained with the British Bobsleigh teams in the 1980's so this conclusion has not been reached without a great deal of thought.

It humours me how many people suggest that more funding should go to the sports that DON'T do well. What incentive would it be to be successful at that sport if you get your funding pulled and pumped into less successful sports. That would only result in people doing less successful on purpose so as to be paid more! Success is rewarded with extra funding as they've worked harder. If the skiiers were serious about their sport they'd do the same as the likes of Murray did. Move to a country that has the facilities. If a GB sieer moved to Austria in their early teens they'd have the training and facilities available to improve their skills to Olympic level

Look here

Cycling was pretty much nowhere 15 years ago. All it took was one man with one dream, to make British cycling the best in the world, the dedication- and expertise to do it, and the money came along. Now Team Sky wants to win the Tour de France, the pinnacle of all pinnacles in the sport. And they might just do it......

Right now, Britain has no dedicated training centre, no engineering industry supporting ski-ing, no organised programmes to send excellent youngsters to winter at school in the Alps (it happens, but not part of a co-ordinated programme) and no Brailsford/Woodward/Shankly figure to make it happen.

A few years ago you could buy a resort in Switzerland (Erner Galen) for the price of a couple of years of the skeleton team. It doesn't cost any more to school children in the mountains than it does in England, but nobody thinks like that....and you might find a few new trouble makers like Daley Thompson who'd channel their ill-directed energy into mountain sport, eh??

Britain's precision engineering is the best in the world - just look at the F1 teams and the support industries. No lack of materials science technology, metal-bashing, computer-aided control systems etc etc. Just not being applied to making skis, analysing in-race performance or the like. No lack of expertise in technical textiles - look at Courtaulds. Just not used for ski-suit technology.

Wind tunnels already exist, high performance training support exists across multiple sports, so there's no lack of expertise there.

So what's needed is the head honcho.

Well what did rowing do all those years ago?

It hired a German. Juergen Grobler. And the results are plain to see.

Now I don't know who ski-ing's Grobler should be.

And I don't know what their dream would be.

But they would need to work in a 3-tiered 5 year plan, with funding increasing with success and increasing corporate sponsorship coming in as success starts to happen.

IMHO.

Ok, let's get some perspective here. Thousands of kids in mountainous countries are skiing every day through the entire winter. A few Brits go out for a week once a year, yet we expect to compete? Get real. You might as well expect the USA to win the football World Cup this summer.

Why do we have to be good at everything? Surely with skiing, the best approach is simply to assist those few that do get to a World Cup level.

Why do we think Britain should be able to compete at the highest level in every sport? As a small nation with limited resources we have to compare ourselves with similar nations (France, Germany, Spain, South Korea etc.) and realise that across the major sports (football, rugby, cricket, summer and winter Olympic events etc.) we always do ourselves justice overall. I'm sure if you took an aggregate across all popular sports, the UK would be pretty high up the league table.

As for the winter Olympics, maybe we should follow the Dutch or South Korea model and support sports that are more applicable to our geography. Of course we're never going to compete with the skiing nations but there's no reason why the UK can't compete in skating, curling and other less climate centric sports (BTW, one curling rink in England? Terrible! Just think all the kids who might have watched it on TV and fancied having a go)

I would suggest that 11th and 13th at the Olympics against all of the traditionally strong nations is an excellent result for our Chemy. A lot of these nations qualify 4 competitors for the games.

I'd much rather have Sport UK fund some of these winter sports properly and look to rationalise the summer games programme where they are clearly spread too thinly with no real possible realsitic expectation of success.

I really, really can't see the justification in pumpin money into sports we simply don't have a chance to be successful at. The cycling example is flawed simply because Britain invested so much we're at an advantage to the rest of the world. No matter how many millions are spent on skiing Britain will simply never be at a competitive advantage, even tripling the current budget would fail to make us medal candidates.

Afraid I have to agree with the majority of posters on this thread: serious questions need to be asked as to whether it is appropriate to channel public funding into skiing in the first place. Some have argued that it isn't an elitist sport. I can only comment on my own experience, but I know no-one of a below average income who regularly skis on snow. My wife and I have looked at the possibility of a skiing holiday but quickly came to the conclusion that it was not affordable, despite the fact that we are both on marginally higher than average incomes.

We need to question the purpose of public funding for sport. I think its fair to say that there are two primary reasons: 1) to achieve international success and recognition in the sport, and 2) to encourage participation in the sport at all levels of society. Are these aims realistic when skiing is the sport in question? I don't think so. We have no history of success in skiing and we do not have the infrastructure (or mountains!) in place to realistically get this success. Possibly we could encourage participation in skiing, but I struggle to believe that this participation would extend far beyond the relatively elite circles who already enjoy it as an annual hobby.

#19, rjagger, uses the example of cycling to support the continued funding of skiing, but I'm afraid that this argument falls flat on a number of levels:

1 - The money has been primarily invested in track cycling in which, contrary to your argument, Britain did have some pedigree. The 1 hour record was for many years considered a blue ribband event on the track and in the '90s Britain produced two record holders in Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman (who went on to win an Olympic gold in pursuit). We certainly had a greater history of success in track cycling than we do currently in skiing.

2 - Although badly maintained at the time, there were a number of velodromes in regular use in Britain so it was not a sport in which we had to go abroad to compete at an international standard.

3 - Road racing is a cycling discipline in which we have a comparatively smaller history of success, however our current achievements in this discipline, whilst being the product of our success on the track (Wiggins, Cav etc) is privately funded by the cyclists respective teams.

4 - Also worth bearing in mind that if Dave Brailsford had not been successful in his pursuit of gold medals then funding for cycling would also have been cut - a fact that he was fully aware of and has supported vocally over the years. One of the key attributes of his success was that he recognised that failure did not merit reward - possibly this is now a lesson that skiing must learn the hard way.

Incidentally, when I talk about failure I am not referring to Chemmy Alcott specifically. Her performance at the Olympics has been perfectly respectable. I'm sure that if she received an extra few hundred grand she would improve further, but the reality is that it is unlikely there would be any others coming to join her.

I suppose the thing to look at is that although skiing doesn't get much money where does the money actually go? Is that £300,000- odd only going to the few elite skiers we have or is that very thinly spread out? I mean how much does it cost to help finance a skier like Chemmy Alcott? I'm not asking for a definitive answer I'm just trying to say that to finance an elite UK skier for a year (seeing as we have no mountains to ski on in this country) is probably an awful lot more than it costs to finance a volleyball team.

Personally I'd like to see more money go to the Winter programme but I think the problem is that everything costs a lot more in the winter programme. I mean there are figures being thrown around saying Amy Williams skeleton alone cost £100,000. I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been funded at all because she was fantastic and it was brilliant that she got the gold. I'm just saying compare that to the cost of buying some volleyballs or footballs or hiring a pitch or court for people and you see what I mean. As we don't have the facilities in this country to practise many winter sports people have to go abroad to train. So this has to paid for, flights, hotels, track time or hill time, and the trainers have to be paid for also. It all adds up. So although maybe diverting some funds from the summer programme could be looked at, I think it would take an awful lot more funding to improve the performances in some sports. And would it leave a legacy or would it just be the case that we do better for a few Olympics and then the performance tails off again?

I think the idea of building the large rink that Steve Redgrave has ben proposing is a fantastic idea as then these winter sports could be practised in this country. But for skiing and similar sports where travel is essential, sadly I think the costs just become too great to think we have much of a hope of improving any time soon. That money could be used elsewhere to really improve our chances in other areas. It's sad but true. As they're said it would be great if they had an endless pot of money but tough decisions have to be made that aren't going to please everyone.

I'd also like to echo post #24 and praise Chemmy for her performance at the Olympics. After everything she's been through over the last few years she performed superbly and I think she can be proud of what she's done. To have to battle as she does all the time just to get the chance to compete must be so tough, throw in injuries, lack of funding and the death of a love one and I think it should put her performance in perspective.

The £372,000 for the last 3 years was to fund the men's and women's programs for both alpine and freestyle skiing as well as the junior teams in all disciplines.

To give an idea of how thinly this is spread Chemmy Alcott, despite receiving a share of the funding, having private sponsorship and putting in what money she has personally, is currently begging on her facebook page for the loan of a van just to get her to the next world cup race.

Sorry, that should say the funds were for the last 4 years, not 3.

At 11:33pm on 01 Mar 2010, JimClark07 wrote:
"I never get this idea that we should forget skiing as we can't do it at home. Its not like we're anywhere near an athletics nation are we?even after how much funding over the last 10 years. In fact ironically the more funding we've put in the worse the results."
The problem is, that whether it be football, cricket, tennis or athletics, we reward mediocrity. You can earn quite a decent living (an exceptional living in football) while winning absolutely nothing.

I cannot belive Graham Bell is trotting out the line that "..there are nearly 2 million skiers in the UK..". What is his definition of a skier? Someone who skis once a year for a week because it is a wonderful leisure activity that the priveleged middle classes can afford (I am one of them) and which constitutes the sum total of maybe 50% of those peoples only 'serious' sporting activity each year.

Dont kid ourselves. GB is not a sporting nation like we try and portray ourselves. We are world champion armchair critics for the most part and are only truly happy when we fail so that we can say 'I told you so' in the pub to our mates.

I was glued to the coverage and always want us to do well in any sport. I represented GB at another minor sport and can have complete empathy for the athletes but cannot believe anyone can justify funding over 50 athletes to the Winter Olymipc at great expense per head when you consider the kit they require. Unfortunately for ski supporters like Mr Bell, the truth is skiing diciplines will never be threatened by anyone from the UK (unless of course we have a defector from USA or Europe who cant make their national team and want an easy route to the Games).

Skiing will always be the domain of those that can afford it. I know Ed Drake and his family and the sacrifices they have made over decades and for the current batch of skiiers they deserve our support and funding over the next few olympics simply for the amount of time, dedication, money and personal sacrifice they have made to date. But lets do it properly and support them all the way with sufficient investment to allow them to live abroad and train and race full time. Forget about supporting 50 plus athletes. Focus on 20 likely success stories and go for it. I bet we dont as we never have the bottle - too scared that we will give the armchair supporters yet another pop at knocking our athletes down.

Post 27 says it all - what are we wasting money for? £327,000 over 4 years for Alpine and freestyle skiing and Junior teams - absolute rubbish, its pathetic and not even worth wasting time administering it. Give it to the top ten athletes in Alpine and Freestyle and at least give them a chance. Even this is a pittance but it reflects the elitist nature of the sport.

Mr Bell, there are millions of drivers in the UK, unfortunately, to compare them with jenson Button is as misguided as comparing me with Ed Drake on the slopes - I have skiied for maybe 100 days in my life but it certainly doesnt qualify me as a skier - I'd be amazed if there were 200 skiers in the UK who could claim it actually their main sport.

Some people's main argument against more funding for Skiing is that it is an elitist sport. I would like to draw these people's attention to the scores of plastic and indoor ski slopes in the country. This is where skiing can be accessed for as little as £15. I am sure most people can afford this. Then when these people want to take up skiing seriously you need funding to go abroad to compete in international competition and train in proper conditions.

I am honestly amazed by the reason that skiing on here is being labelled as elitist. Maybe in the past but not now. Most people bar the west country and Wales (until the proposed snow dome is built) are within 2 hours of an indoor ski slope. As said above it is as little as £15 which is less than hiring a tennis court where i live. To say it is elitist is not implying financial but social prejudice, which simply isn't true as all walks of life have tried skiing.

If we are only funding sport on success and probability of winning then football should receive no funding. No success in over 40 years, most participated sport in the world and competing against world superpowers. By the negative definitions here football therefore should be dropped for sports we have more of a chance of winning, which have small participation numbers and little technical skill.

I suggest the naysayers also look at the history books and see skiing is not just a popular British pastime but also one we helped organise (as well as other original sports in the first winter games). The first World Championships in 1931 remain the only time in history of any sport that a country has hosted a World Championships in another country (Murren, Switzerland). Britain has also had 4 female World Champions. So surely that would be success?

Maybe the people who don't want to fund skiing are right and we should stick to the current funding levels for our most 'successful' sports e.g. football, cricket, athletics, tennis etc.

I enjoy watching skiing, I can turn up at my local dry ski slope, pay my money and ski as slowly or quickly as i am able to, anyone else can come along take some lessons, learn and enjoy that same use of the slope.

I also enjoy watching rugby, I could go to my local team and try out, but if i didn't meet there standard I wouldn't be invited to play.


Now what was that about elitism in skiing?

I'm in the British Ski Team for Speed Skiing. We currently have 3 of us in the top 8 on the FIS world cup tour. One of the team, Marc Poncin, was world champion a couple of years ago, and currently leads the tour.

However, we recieve no funding, no sponsorship and no support (I bought my kit from eBay!). Other countries have team minibuses to move them about, coaches, training sessions, paid flights, kit and so on. It's no longer an Olympic sport, so sadly no interest from the UK. Hence why only one of us could afford to race in Canada this weekend.