 Poster: A snowHead
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| Rob_Quads wrote: |
| ster wrote: |
@Rob_Quads, Dont a lot of the selected athletes live in the mountains full time now, so while a few of them would have been impacted (maybe bobsleigh, but if we had any ice skaters of note they would not have been), I imagine a significiant number of them would have been only impacted as much as any others from those alpine countries.
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Having watched the "Free Spirits" document it showed most of the freestyle snowboard/skiiers are UK based at the moment. James Woods was living in the mountains but the rest were taking trips out. One of the interesting comments was. "To get a weeks worth of practice you need to go out for 2 weeks" due to the weather issues that you no doubt have. I suspect in "normal" times they would be spending a lot more time living abroad |
This got me interested to have a look at the situation in terms of where the athletes are based and what increased difficulties covid could have placed on travel and therefore training/competition. I have culled the events and in some cases where the sport is more individual, listed each of them, looked to say where the facilities are very different from lcoation to perhaps better places and put what I think is the situation. This is based on some pretty rudimentary research and knowledge and would be good if anyone has better info to add to it. Bear in mind when I say "no impact", that means that there is little substantive impact due to covid over and above EXISTING challenges to "UK" athletes in these winter sports (IMHO), either as a result of their location, or facilities where they are based.
I've also put in the Beijing round funding as made public on the UK Sport website. I was quite surprised at the levels of funding for some, e.g. £5.6m for curling and £6.4m for skeleton, given the facilities in UK for the former (no need to travel to train) and the amount of athletes in the latter.
I also flagged using #/## by the names I thought have been considered as possible/strong contenders for medals. Again all my own supposition.
Skiing & Snowboarding £9.5m
Alpine skiing
Billy Major on the WC tour, no impact?
Dave Ryding # on the WC tour, no impact?
Charlie Guest on the WC tour, no impact?
Alex Tilley on the WC tour, no impact?
Cross country skiing
James Clugnet Grenoble, France – no impact
Andrew Musgrave# & Andrew Young# both in Norway – no impact
Snowboarding
Huw Nightingale ???
Charlotte Bankes ## French alps – no impact.
Katie Ormerod UK based, impacted
Freestyle skiing
Lloyd Wallace Shaftesbury, ENG -impacted
Leonie Gerken-Schofield Chatel – no impact
Makayla Gerken-Schofield Chatel – no impact
Will Feneley Norfolk but on WC tour – impacted?
Ollie Davies In France or in UK?
Gus Kenworthy ## Telluride, USA – no impact
Zoe Atkin Park City, UT, USA - no impact
James Woods ## Sheffield - impacted
Izzy Atkin # Park City, Utah, no impact
Kirsty Muir Aberdeen - impacted
Katie Summerhayes Sheffield - impacted
Bobsleigh £120k
Have a home push/start track at Bath Uni no real impact?
Men's two and four-man on the WC tour, no impact?
Women's ???
Curling £5.6m – no impact
Figure skating £40k – no impact
Luge £6k
Rupert Staudinger born in Bavaria, based there? On Luge World Cup circuit. No impact?
Speed skating £740k
Women's short track & Mens short track – Some based overseas - No impact?
Men's & Women’s long track –all based in Netherlands (nowhere better to be?) - No impact.
Skeleton £6.4m
All on WC tour? No impact?
Laura Deas ##
Brogan Crowley
Matt Weston ##
Marcus Wyatt
| Layne wrote: |
| ster wrote: |
| Layne wrote: |
| @Mr.Egg, it's sport though. Funding doesn't guarantee anything but pulling it does. |
So how much is enough then? |
I've no idea but you can't evaluate performance in many of these events purely based on the end result. |
No you can't. But a target has been set by the funder (not me) of 3 to 7 medals (of what colour, so three bronzes all the way to seven golds?) which is a very wide target and I would say that its something that should be acheivable in the round. UK has athletes in 45 events. So they will/should look for a "return" on their substancial funding, otherwise why are they doing it?
Perhaps some of that money might be well spent in re-opening the Sheffield dry slope where some are based, proven talent has arisen and would be a community resouce?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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You may need to readjust the curling section
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Mike Pow, yes, they doing well. That was just my uneducated view, but meant to be pre-games, not with hindsight. 
Lets hope they didnt need any heart medicine to calm the nerves.
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Fingers crossed for Zoe and Gus down in the stunt trench too. Particularly strong showing for Zoe.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Can we talk about Julia Marinos withdrawal. To threaten a silver medalist with DQ over the branding of their equipment seems... daft.
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| Richard_Sideways wrote: |
| Can we talk about Julia Marinos withdrawal. To threaten a silver medalist with DQ over the branding of their equipment seems... daft. |
100% - I could understand it if was just a sticker but if its the brand of the board then its the brand. How is being paid by Burton to use their boards any different to being paid by Prada to use their board? If they really want no advertising they need to make sure that no requirement can have a brand on it.
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I was watching some half pipe yesterday, when commentator (Ed Leigh?) said how well Head skis were doing during this Olympics (I thought 'blatant plug - but who knows...)
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The quality of the judging/adjudication was in question again in the Womens Ski-Cross final when Fanny Smith got yellow-carded for obstructing Daniela Maier. Penalty put her back into 4th with Maier promoted to Bronze position. However it was Smith who'd been obstructed by the 2nd place skier, who forced her into Maier. Neither Smith or Maier agreed with the judging decision and despite both appealing to the judges, the decision was held.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
How is being paid by Burton to use their boards any different to being paid by Prada
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Exactly - Other brands also rebadge other gear to conform with "Team Branding" - Adidas logos are regularly sewn over other manufacturers gear as they have a team corporate sponsorship, for example. Lots of brands hardware come out of the same manufacturing facilities too.
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IOC says
"Regarding the branding of the snowboard, the athlete was competing with a snowboard with branding of a company that doesn’t primarily have its business in sporting goods, contrary to Olympic advertising rules that protect the funding of the Olympic Movement. "
NY Post says
"Marino’s $3,600 Prada snowboard reportedly sold out within hours after she won silver for Team USA, according to Front Office Sports"
i.e. no one except for the IOC is allowed to make money out of the olympics. If you don't like it you can take your board and go home.
Its a business!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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apparently Gus Kenworthy is also a Prada brand ambassador. Dunno what he's been riding on this past few weeks...
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Chap from the BOA on R4 this morning rolling out the expected “rationale” for lack of medals, including actually we usually only win one or two excepting for the last 2 olympics. Oddly he didn’t mention if funding was very different now from when we only won one or two.
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I'd like to see a breakdown of how the funding is spent. Ski and Snowboard got £9 million over 4 years so that's roughly £2.5 million a year.
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You know it makes sense.
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@russ_e, The Ski and Snowboard funding used to be split between the different areas, Alpine didn't get very much.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Fear not - I'm sure it'll be slashed across the board post Beijing to encourage out athletes to work harder and raise themselves out of poverty.
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Poster: A snowHead
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What happened in the first end of the woman's curling semi! Four down after one end?
Now likely to be 4-3, how topsy turvy.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Not sure if anyone else is watching the pairs figure skating short program - simply wow!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| rjs wrote: |
| @russ_e, The Ski and Snowboard funding used to be split between the different areas, Alpine didn't get very much. |
That's the impression I got so I wonder where the money goes?
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@russ_e, thats the question I guess.
The curling semi was an exciting to & fro match with the lead changing hands, big ends and going to the extra. Well done.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@russ_e, Most of the money was required to be spent on Freestyle, skiing and snowboarding.
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Well done girls, another great result from curling
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@rjs, weeeelll to be brutal, that's where we have the talent.... and chilly bowls obviously.
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Jeez that was some slam on second run from Gus Kenworthy, glad he was OK. Great guy, well done to him to come back after that.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Real whipper, adrenaline will have carried him through the third.
Sore boy in the morning! Hope he has a good physio.
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GB team not listed for tomorrow's (Sunday) team parallel, re-scheduled from today (Saturday). I assume that GB couldn't muster a team. 15 teams listed
incl China and ROC. Maybe the lads wanted to be back in Europe for the Garmisch SL next weekend.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@davidthornton, dace ryding wants to focus on WC so only left 3 GB skiers
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@davidthornton, GBR wasn't on the start list for the original event. The last time Dave did GS was in 2013 and the only other male racer there is Billy Major.
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@rjs, ah yes, it's GS
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You know it makes sense.
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Dave Ryding has a chance of finishing the SL World Cup in the top 10. He'll definitely want to concentrate on the SL World Cup. In recent seasons he's consistently finished in the top 15 SL rankings.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Japan’s Yoshida is almost as hot as our Eve!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Great steal.
What’s going on?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Sloppy from Hayley. Not as hot as Eve.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Excellent Gold from the GB Womens Curling team.
Final tally, one Gold, one Silver - both from curling.
There will be a bit of an inquest when the group get home - particularly relating to the ski / boarding and skeleton.
These have had substantial millions of £ pumped into them in the runup and the outcome has not been great..........we may not necessarily expect medals, but too many have gone out with a whimper.
Perhaps we need to focus more on a smaller number of elite competitors?
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Another gold for Johannes Strolz, great team result for Austria…..pleased for Michi Matt also
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@GreenDay, I was going to be a bit more blunt. A lot of over hyped underachiement in the freestyle arenas.
The curling teams are a credit to Scotland for both their hard work and demeanour.
I did think that something like curling might be my only chance for a medal, but looking at the sheer physique of the men's team I shall have to wait for Olympic drinking to become a thing. 
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@GreenDay, Nowt nationalistic about centres of excellence, just credit where credit is due!
Stirling is to curling as Leeds is to diving, the best flock to the best.
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@chocksaway, +1 Manchester cycling.
All the media luvvies who are bemoaning the poor GB medals haul they presumably expected need to remember that’s we’ve had a 2 year pandemic and lots of our skiers and boarders were training on trampolines and ball pools not on snow.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thanks for the link!
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With the average transfer fee in the Premier League currently standing at £9.3 million, £28 million for the whole GB programme seems a ‘bargain’ and a tremendous utilisation of assets.
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