Winter athletes will get extra funding
BRITISH Olympic chief Colin Moynihan has vowed to increase the proportion of central funding allocated to winter sports.
Just £6.5m – 1.5 per cent of the total funding pool – currently goes to winter athletes, compared with £400m for their summer counterparts.
Matters reached a nadir when governing body SnowsportGB went into administration just days before the Winter Olympics, which starts today in Vancouver.
The British Olympic Association was forced to find £100,000 to allow Britain’s hopefuls to compete in Canada – but its chairman Moynihan insists enough is enough.
“This has to be a turning point for winter sports,” he said. “We have £6.5m spent over a four-year period for winter and £400m for summer sports. That’s unacceptable to the BOA.
“We have to sit down with the government and all the stakeholders, and to ask the athletes what they want.
“This really is a new dawn as far as I am concerned. It couldn’t get worse than for a governing body to go into administration the week before the Olympics start.”