Funding for GB Snowsport More Than Doubled to £11m
3rd July 2020
Last modified on May 20th, 2021
The money comes from UK Sport and is aimed to deliver medal winning performances at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and beyond. UPDATED
The money will help support the athletes in the run up to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.
GB Snowsport has seen an increase in Olympic funding from £5.2m in the PyeongChang cycle to £11.1 million for the Beijing Olympic cycle.
For Paralympic funding, there has been an increase from £2.7 million in the PyeongChang cycle, to £4.4 million for the Beijing cycle.
One of GB’s brightest prospects is 22-year old Katie Ormerod who is the reigning World Cup Snowboard Slopestyle Champion, Katie Ormerod win crystal globe
A Crystal Globe is awarded to ski and snowboard athletes with the most points in their discipline when the World Cup competition year concludes.
Ormerod is the first British woman and was the first British snowboarder to collect the coveted trophy.
GB Para snowboarder Owen Pick went on to pick up the banked slalom Crystal Globe last winter.
James Woods, is the only British skier athlete to have a Crystal Globe.
He won the ski slopestyle title in 2013.
Another athlete hoping to benefit from the new funding will be GB’s No1 Alpine skier, Dave Ryding, who specialises in slalom.
“We welcome UK Sport’s finding decision and see it as recognition for all the hard work that we have been doing within the organisation,” said the CEO of GB Snowsport, Vicky Gosling.
“GB Snowsport’s primary objective is clear – to win Olympic and Paralympic medals, and this investment gives us additional momentum and impetus as we look forward to achieving success at the 2022 Olympic Winter and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.
“We know UK Sport face tough decisions when deciding how to allocate funding, and we’re extremely grateful for the additional investment we will receive to support our medal ambitions for Beijing 2022.”
Vicky Gosling, CEO GB Snowsport. Image © PlanetSKI.
The ambitious goal is for GB Snowsport to break into the top 5 nations in the world across all ski and snowboard disciplines by 2030.
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“We are committed to delivering against our Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games medal targets and this further investment from UK Sport shows that they believe that we can continue to generate more success,” said the GB Snowsport Performance Director, Dan Hunt.
“We still have a lot of hard work to do, but we are continuing to get the right performance structures in place to set ourselves up for maximising the performances of our world-class athletes.”
GB team members have been achieving impressive results across the disciplines and the age groups.
The most experienced elite athletes in the squads were continuing to stack up podiums and/or top 10 results last winter.
Winning medals – GB freeskier James Woods – photo GB Park & Pipe
But it’s the younger athletes who will succeed them in years to come who will help GB fulfil the 2030 ambition.
Some of those youngsters are probably not even on our radar yet, but those that are have begun to show real potential.
If GB Snowsport can continue to develop that potential, who knows what the future will hold.
And what that could mean for encouraging more people to take up skiing or snowboarding.
Here at PlanetSKI we take an in-depth look at which athletes to look out for and whether the ambition to be a Top 5 snowsports nation by 2030 is genuinely realistic, The Skiers & Snowboarders Aiming To Make GB A Top 5 Nation.
