British Team confirmed for Winter Olympics ... with no freestylers

A snowHead

Britain's team for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin was confirmed yesterday, as follows:

Dan Wakeham (first male Brit snowboarder to compete in the Olympics)
Lesley McKenna, Kate Foster and Zoe Gillings (female snowboarding squad)
Alain Baxter, Noel Baxter, Finlay Mickel, James Leuzinger and Roger Cruickshank (male skiing team)
Chemmy Alcott (sole female skier)

There will be no British freestylers or ski jumpers.

Reports from BBC Sport ... The Scotsman.
Any comments on the line-up? Any obvious omissions?

A snowHead

David Goldsmith,

seems a real shame that we have no more female skiers coming through the system, but in saying this I think this might well be Chemmy's year

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Unfortunately I cannot see beyond a medal for Lesley McKenna and a very remote outside chance of Finlay picking up a Bronze but only due to the fact that most countries can only enter 3 per discipline.

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Interesting thread started on this earlier today on MySnowSports by Stuart, the Snowsport England chairman.

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Indeed - extracted from that thread is this comment, by 'escmatters':

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I am assuming that everyone posting in this thread so far is form the UK (either living here or originally from here)

SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ALL SO ANTI OUR TEAM, if fellow skiers think they dont stand a chance what hope have the skiers & boarders of the future got,

skiing... there is no point taking up skiing you will never win you are british!!!!

seems to be the attitude around here, and quite frankly it really gets on my wick

give the guys the support they deserve, we are not an alpine country but we do have some great competitors just look at Alains result in the last olympics un til the vicks scandal. Chemmy and Findlay are regulars in the top twenty and I am sure they can rise to the occasion.
the snowboarding team are doing well and getting better with every event

as for the other disciplines we stand a chance there as well so why all the negativity

ok rant over

After all it is free

That seems to be a rant too far.

In what sense is there an 'anti-team theme' to this thread?

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About the negativity, I was firstly making my comments about the alpine ski and snowboard team only. Secondly as far as I am concerned I am being realistic.

Chemmy is our only female skier and unfortunately her current form is not showing any signs that she can up the quality to threaten for a medal. Alain Baxter I don't think has even qualified for a second run yet this season and if he has he hasn't come any where near a top ten finish. In fact for a second year running we have had the typical press release that he is posting great times in training and he his trying to replicate this in competition.Neol as had to return to European cup competitions to try and even get some sort of form. Roger Cruickshank is just returning from a major injury and I have to apologise but i haven't even heard of James Leuzinger or Kate Foster. Zoe although as posted some good results I don't think she is back to her form that she showed before her accident.

This leave Finley and Leslie. Leslie is already at the top of her field and Finley as been rapidly progressing with each competition and hopefully if he carries his form into the olympics then I can see him nicking a bronze medal all be it a very slim chance.

Nobody would be more delighted than me if our ski and snowboard team perform miricals but please lets not try and make our competitors out to be better than what they actually are or we will end up with these guys having so much pressure put on them that is really beyond thier abilities. ( Think Tim Henman ).

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David Goldsmith,

snow reports

I think we're going to get 10 golds! Is that better?

Guys,... it is not a personal attack on anyone, i just feel very passionately about the whole thing. over the past 10 years or so i have given up a lot of time, resourses and product to try and help out national team members, working with various mebers of the home nations squads and the National team members at either no cost or greatly reduced cost. i do not regret one thing about the amount of effort that has been put in to try and help out athletes, there are times that national governing bodies decline help as they think that they have an answer, (unfortunately their answer is often to do nothing) we are not an alpine nation but with the right amount of support ....and prehaps a little lottery cash we can be up there with the best of them (i believe, (and this was the case 2 years ago and may have changed)that you can get funding if you are scottish as there are mountains, but Chemmy and other english members of the team do not get a penny from lottery funds as there are no mountains) how warped is that. they are all members of the GB national team, surely they should all get the same level of help

a classic example is how the factories treat our racers, it is no secret what i do, and in the past i was involved with Chemmy's boot fitting (when she was on Salomon kit), you may have seen last year the problems that she had with her foot this has happend since she has moved to tecnica, the factory techs basically did not consider it necessary to stretch the boot, instead they just ground a bit out but only after the problem was so serious that she could not ski (, even then they ground right through and covered the hole with tape). now how is that helping our guys out.

You know it makes sense.

CEM don't disagree with your comments but wanting our guys ( and gals ) to do well and support them is what we should be doing but lets not get carried away and mix that with carrying over expectation of our athletes ( which adds pressure to them ).

You know in our country if we start saying Finley's going to win gold and then only finished fourth everybody would start saying how disappointing Finley was instead of saying with the resources that we have against the main Alpine nations and shear numbers of athletes Finley's acheivement would have been fanatastic.

If he did even come fourth this should get him onto the honours list.

Finley Mickel MBE as a nice sound to it. ( Sounds much better than Sir Alex ).

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Super Eagle,

fair point, but you see were i am coming from

lets just give these guys the support they deserve rather than putting down at every opporunity

A snowHead

CEM Bearing in mind our present governments attitude of giving honours to sports people who have performed well.

Did they give honours to our curling team who struck gold at the last Olympics and also have the Bell brothers or at least Martin been granted honours.

If not surely this proves that our present government only use the honours system to seek additional publicity instead of giving awards to those who performed and acheived success at the highest level in their sport whilst getting little financial support.

Eddie the Eagle - OBE

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I know freestyle is not everyone's cup of tea, but it would be good to pass on snowHead's views on the principles involved here, even if we can't really pass comment on the technicalities...

Above you've got the heartfelt reponse from an Olympic candidate who achieved the minimum Olympic qualifying standard but failed to reach the heights set by our own committee.

He achieved this despite no funding, and no support from our governing body.

Personally I reckon sportsmen of this ilk deserve to get a chance, however likely they are to win a medal!

Please read Simon's comments, and it would be good to hear some snowHead thoughts!

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If Simon Bates has achieved an Olympic qualifying standard, or a standard that's superior to other British athletes competing at Turin, then clearly he should be at Turin.

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It seems to me that Simon is being badly treated, personally I would liked to have seen him ski-ing for Britain at the Olympics. Is resourcing really such that it makes sense to be so rigid about entry to the team? Or isn't this a question about resourcing?

...and I'd like to wish Simon the best of luck in his future competitions.

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Is the only IOC qualification (rather than the BOC) simply 140 FIS points in Alpine disciplines? If it is, there are several UK competitors who have the qualifcation level but haven't been selected for the Games.

I'd like to see British competitors in as many disciplines as possible, including Simon who does indeed seem to have been harshly treated. Surely one of the BOC's objectives should be to get as much UK interest in the Winter Games as possible, and what better way than ensuring that as many UK athletes as possible actually compete? It can't be about the cost of getting the athlete to Turin, can it? Perhaps the UK's Alpine Performance Director has an unreasonably high expectation? Or maybe he just doesn't like Simon Bates? Whatever the reason, it doesn't seem right, either for the athlete or for TV viewers like me who enjoy having a bit of UK interest in these minority sports.

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rob@rar.org.uk, yes that occurred to me to earlier. I suppose the difference is that in a discipline where there is tough competition for places there is understandably going to be some people missing out. But where there is only one or two, would - or should - you exclude him/her/them from living the dream? Especially someone who has achieved that level with no backing from the sport's authorities (unlike the alpine team?)

Difficult. I suppose one could equally suggest that Kwame, had he been able to scrape the 140 points needed, should be stopped from competiting by the Ghanaians on the grounds that he has no chance of a medal.

Shouldn't be forgotten though that Simon has actually scored World Cup points by finishing in the top 30 in his last but one competition, this year. Other than Chemmy and Finlay, no alpine competitors have managed this during the 2005/6 season, and some (such as Roger Cruickshank) have never even come remotely close (whilst accepting that he did achieve one very good result in Europa Cup).

After all it is free

PG, in my opinion, if athletes meet the IOC qualification then they should be allowed to compete, selecting as many as possible until the national quota is filled. For a seperate discussion, I'd also like to see the IOC qualification thresholds increased, so that the competition is truly world class athletes only. But in the meantime, if UK athletes have qualified then they should be allowed to privilege of attending the Games.

Here is the actual video (5Mb) of Simon's World Cup points earning run, including the flip that was unheard of four years previously. Scored on both the technical aspect plus the speed of the run (which is what cost him some points, a little slow he says). Looks b... fast to me!

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PG, this is (obviously) not the first time a free styler has been discriminated against.

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British Team confirmed for Winter Olympics ... with no freestylers

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