 Poster: A snowHead
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From the Daily Torygraph
How Britain developed an elite Alpine skiing programme on shoestring budget
GB team operates on £82,000 a year but camaraderie and focus has brought them together and seen them achieve notable success
There cannot be many chief executives of British sporting federations who sleep in their hire car in the line of duty, much less on a freezing night in the Alps. But that is what Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport, did on a recent trip to St Moritz. After their plane from Manchester was delayed, she and Pat Sharples, her head coach, arrived at the Swiss resort at 1.30am and found themselves locked out of their hotel.
Waking the athletes, some of whom were competing the following morning, was, she says, “out of the question”. And the only other hotel available at that hour was 1,000 Swiss francs (£881) a night minimum. So they made the best of a bad situation. “It wasn’t the most comfortable night’s sleep,” Gosling says, laughing. “We couldn’t even push the seats back as it was a cheapo hire car and we had equipment in the back. But we didn’t want to take any money out of the programme, so there was nothing else for it.”
Such sacrifices do not go unnoticed by the athletes. “It’s a team effort,” says veteran skier Dave Ryding. “We all muck in. And there’s a real never-say-die attitude in our squad. But it makes you wonder: what could we do with proper funding?”
It is a fair point.
It probably escaped your notice but 37-year-old Ryding, along with team-mates Billy Major and Laurie Taylor, finished the season just gone ranked sixth in the world in men’s slalom, ahead of powerhouses such as Italy, the USA and Canada. Individually Ryding was tied seventh in the FIS rankings, a quite staggering achievement considering GB’s men’s slalom team is operating on just £82,000 a year funding. Yes, you read that correctly. A week’s salary for an average Premier League footballer is expected to fund an entire season’s worth of training camps, air fares, food, equipment, hotels and staff.
The £82,000 is actually supposed to be ring-fenced for Ryding, as he is the only athlete in the GB Alpine ski team deemed worthy of funding by UK Sport (the rest of Alpine was written off as “not investible” after the disappointing Beijing Games two years ago). But Ryding prefers to share his pot.
“They [his team-mates] are just as important to me as I am to them,” he points out on a video call with Gosling and coach Alain Baxter. “Billy and Laurie push me day-in day-out. I personally don’t know if I could do what I do without them. But we need more money. Somehow we’ve managed to pull it off this year. But we’re staring down the barrel now….”
Dave Ryding decided to share his funding pot with his team-mates as he 'could not do it without them'
Ryding is not exaggerating. As it stands, the plan is to return to action in June with the team’s first on-snow camp. But no one is quite sure whether the funding will be there to cover it. The external sponsorship they had has ceased. They have a small donation from Skyscanner, but Ryding’s head coach, Tristan Glasse-Davies, has just been poached by the Americans because Gosling could not guarantee his wages “It’s a blow but he’s got a family,” Gosling says. “There are no hard feelings. They’ll pay him well. Fair play to him.”
‘We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul at the moment’
Baxter – who like Ryding massively over-achieved during his career, famously winning a bronze medal at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 which he then had to controversially give back after using a Vicks inhaler in the States which he did not realise contained a banned substance – is staying, but there is no money to pay for his wages. The team have no chef, no nutritionist. They can barely afford to pay for the three vans which operate as mobile storage units during the season. And they certainly don’t have drivers for those vans.
“It’s funny, but it’s not funny,” says Gosling, a former Group Captain in the Royal Air Force who went on to run the 2016 Invictus Games. “I’m in awe of them. When you speak to guys like Alain and they’re like ‘Oh, I was up last night waxing skis until 1am and then, you know, I’m back on the hill at 7am..’ And I’m like ‘How the hell do you eat? And cook?’ And everybody else has got a nutritionist, or a pillow fluffer.
“It literally got to the stage a few weeks ago where we were like ‘Wait, who is going to drive the van?’ And the only person left was Laurie [world ranking 33].
“We’re literally robbing Peter to pay Paul at the moment. But I’m so, so proud of them. Finishing sixth in the world this season is insane considering what they’re up against. They’re quite military in the way that they operate. It is really selfless. They get the job done, they crack on, they find a way through it. They deserve proper backing.”
The GB slalom team is run on a shoestring, forcing them all to muck in in some way CREDIT: Dave Ryding
Gosling is eager to stress the distinction between Alpine and Freestyle, which has around £7m in UK Sport funding for this Olympic cycle and has likewise enjoyed an extraordinary season with the likes of Charlotte Bankes, Mia Brookes, Zoe Atkin and Kirsty Muir winning medals galore.
“The money that Freestyle get is completely ring-fenced for Freestyle,” she says. “So even if I wanted to move some over to help the other programmes, I can’t. I’m audited every quarter. Besides, they need that money.”
What Alpine needs is an external sponsorship, private donors. Someone who wants to “go on the journey” with the team to Milan-Cortina 2026.
“It’s a great opportunity for someone,” Gosling says. “They could get a lot of brand recognition. When Dave won in Kitzbuhel in 2022 my phone blew up. I’ve never known anything like it. He was on the front page of The Times. There’s a real fascination with Alpine skiing that cuts through.”
Still operating on a day-to-day basis
Gosling reckons the team need around £350,000 per year to continue, way less than the £850,000 a year they had for the men’s and women’s teams combined before UK Sport cut them adrift. But significantly more than they have now.
Ideally, she says, they would hire a second ski tech, to relieve the pressure on Alain and fellow coach Jai Geyer, and free them up to coach. Plus some administrative support.
But most of all, they need to know their programme is actually going ahead and that they have vans and enough fuel to get from race to race.
“That’s the most important thing,” agrees Ryding, who began his skiing career on Pendle Dry Slope at £3.50 a go. Ryding’s background on dry slopes prompted the great Marcel Hirscher to remark once, after seeing a documentary about Ryding’s upbringing, “I was close to tears. Usually in Austria we use these mats for our shoes and our feet!”
“I don’t need psychologists or cooks,” Ryding continues. “I’ve been around a long time. I know how to look after myself. We actually just lost our worst chef so that will be a positive on that side! Tristan did the basics, but it was quite often the basics. And my equipment is taken care of by Fischer.
“It’s the uncertainty that’s the hardest thing. When the funding was removed by UK Sport right before the 2022/23 season I had to carry the stress through the whole season. And when you look at where I was ranked that season, it was my worst ranking of the last eight years so I’d definitely say it played a part in it.”
Despite the tight budget the camaraderie is high in the camp and there has been successes such as Ryding's win in Kitzbuhel in 2022
As it stands, Ryding will be able to draw from bib numbers one to eight at the start of next season, a significant advantage on deteriorating pistes. He is adamant he can finish his career with a medal in Milan-Cortina in two years’ time given the right backing. And he insists the future of men’s slalom is bright for GB, with the Carrick-Smith brothers, Luca, Freddy and Zak, leading a new wave. But they cannot do it without backing.
“I’m guessing but the Swiss or the Austrians are probably on £20m a year for their Alpine teams, with £3-5million of that for slalom alone,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it’s quite Cool Runnings, but yeah, the other teams do look at us a bit like that [the film about the Jamaican bobsleigh team].
“We’re certainly punching above our weight. But there’s no reason to think we cannot continue to do that. I think what you’ll see over the next 20 years is a very, very purple patch for British skiing. You look at the Carrick-Smith brothers who have had the podiums at the Youth Olympic Games, and others too, honestly the future is bright.
“We’ve all got better rankings than we’ve ever had. We all finished top 20 at Kitzbuhel last year – I think only Austria had more. So we are on the front foot in that sense. If we can just get everything locked down, and really start charging towards the season, I think we can go way better, because the boys are on the cusp of being ranked in the top 30. And when you get that start bib all the time, that’s when you really start snowballing towards where I’m ranked. They’ve got the speed, they’ve got 90 per cent of the attributes. 10 per cent more, and then they’ll be doing what I’ve been doing. It is that close.”
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Amazing and criminal in equal measure
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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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Yes, Dave Ryding and the other GB alpine skiers have done amazingly well with shoestring financial support from UK sport.
And they're not the only British skiers to gain success in similar circumstances. As this GBsnowsports interview with Jasmin Taylor (who just won two Crystal Globes including the overall championship in World Cup Telemark) identifies, Telemark racing doesn't qualify for any public funding due to its current omission from the Olympic Winter Games.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Coach Tristan Glasse-Davies hasn't renewed his contract for next season, due to the uncertainties around funding, plus a young family
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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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How a sponsor could not read this and want in I don't know.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Criminal really.
We really know how to treat our top sports people in this country.
I shot (archery) once with a guy who got bronze at Barcelona Olympics. When he returned home he had his dole stopped and was fined because he was out of the country without telling the dole office!
Just because a sport doesn't stand much of a chance of getting a medal doesn't mean they shouldn't get any funding at all. Surely we should be funding for the future, not just the elite?
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| Quote: |
Just because a sport doesn't stand much of a chance of getting a medal doesn't mean they shouldn't get any funding at all.
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Perhaps. But at the end of the day there is a limited amount of funding. You have to prioritise it in someway. Targeting sports where you think you can have success seems like an obvious choice.
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Surely we should be funding for the future, not just the elite?
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Nice in theory. But again limited pool of money and much easier to target the elite. Trying to identify future talent is really difficult to do - look at the top premier league teams academies that have all the money and tools and yet such a low rate of actually developing top talent. If you are going down that route you need to take the china approach of taking thousands of kids with x,y,z and developing them, knowing 99% are never going to be world class. Hugely expensive.
It's worth noting this is not just skiing. There are lots of athletes that struggle to make a living, even at the top level. Ruth Astle a top British triathlete does a very good YouTube video at the end of each year breaking down her yearly finances (last year she only made about £7k profit for the year!). The sports where athletes are getting paid huge amounts are the exceptions to rule, and even in some of them it's only the top 1% getting paid the huge salaries.
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In a very modest way we help support Ed Guigonnet https://edguigonnetski.com/ .
Ed is from St Martin de Belleville, is half French, but with a very committed English mum Caroline. She is a force of nature, relentlessly fundraising, much involved flogging random donated items to her Bizarre Bazaar. Here is her financial summary extracted from her round up for the year, now that he has no GB funding (and even when he did it cost the family £21k to support him). The financial demands are huge. Any donations are welcome!
“MONEY MATTERS
Please find enclosed the financial report for 2023/2024.
We are missing one bill and one credit, but they will virtually cancel each other out.
As a quick summary, this year we have raised nearly £40 000 and had £17 000 in the bank from last year. Most of the credit came from the Bizarre/Bazaar and the Prize draw, but an amazing £18 000 came from sponsors/grants, both private and companies. Thank you to everyone.
Costs, as I had expected, increased enormously to an incredibly huge £ 42 831.93. This was over £8 000 more than last year, a 23% increase. I had anticipated it, but the amount still shocks.
As a reminder, in 2021/2022, when Ed was in the GB Europa cup programme, partly funded by GBS, the total cost for the season was £21350. We are now paying double.
We just can't continue to fund this amount indefinitely. The bizarre/bazaar and the prize draw will continue this year of course, and I will have to continue to ask everyone for money. But it's just so, so difficult asking for help the whole time, even though people are so, so supportive.
After discussions with Ed, we have decided, as a family, that he can continue for another 2 years (so long as the potential and the desire to reach the top is always there). Hopefully by then he will either be in the WC squad or GBS will have set up a EC partially funded programme that will ease the finances. We're not expecting a fully funded programme, just some sort of Federation financial support to make the burden lighter.
THANK YOU EVERYONE
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone, from the bottom of my heart, for all the support you have given Ed this year. Whether it is in encouraging words (in this difficult season) or with amazing donations (both big and small). Your continuing support is what is allowing Ed to continue in his World Cup dream.
I would also like to "warn" you that the sponsorship renewal request emails will start going out shortly. I hope that many will still support, but totally understand if you can't. Just let me know ... you won't be taken off the newsletter mailing lists, I will just not bombard you with emails asking for money !!
Happy Springtime (although, as I write, it is snowing here !!) and I'll be back shortly, hopefully with confirmation of Ed's new training structure and his programme for this inter-season.
Thank you again for all your support
Cx
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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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@gixxerniknik, agree with your sentiment, but look at it from a broad context, and this is a conversation I've had with (non-skier) friends. Skiing is a middle/upper class white sport, generally. If you're Sport England or GB Sport whoever the funders are, are you going to fund a sport like skiing which has really high entry barriers and requires being out of the country basically all year, or do you support something like boxing or basketball or something, which in the case of basketball, basically just requires you to have a pair of trainers and sports clothes.
The 3 guys on the World Cup punch hugely above their weight, and to see 3 of them regularly making second runs is phenomenal, puts places like Austria to shame in the scheme of things, but, it's not going to be high up the list for funders.
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If this was the USA the snowHeads equivalent collective would be fund raising and donating.
Such things are tax deductible there which is a great help and it creates a much greater culture of giving.
I'm not knocking us, because I am one of the snowHeads who isn't about to donate, I'm just saying...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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From what I understand personal donations are only eligible for gift aid being claimed by the fund it is donated to, but is not tax deductible for those making the donation. If donated from a business it could be but there needs to be evidence that the sponsorship generates business in some way, advertising usually.
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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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I am surprised Jim Ratcliffe can't be persuaded into sponsoring them.
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I agree it's crazy how little money these guys manage their campaign on, but it's also amazing that the next crop of youngsters ever manage to get to a level where they can become players too, given that they don't seem to get any financial help at all. The struggles that parents have to go through to fund and facilitate a young person's training shouldn't be underestimated, and it's not just skiing - I know people who compete for GB at climbing, and there is no funding at all, apart from any sponsorship people might manage to secure.
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You know it makes sense.
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The article looks like a PR job for GB Snowsport even though it sounds like they do precious little for the Alpine skiers.
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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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| boarder2020 wrote: |
| You have to prioritise it in someway. Targeting sports where you think you can have success seems like an obvious choice. |
Err, I thought that was exactly the point -they are already relatively successful. And yet they are not prioritised.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@swskier, Really?
From the original article...
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Gosling is eager to stress the distinction between Alpine and Freestyle, which has around £7m in UK Sport funding for this Olympic cycle
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Just a quick check brings up for example £23,682,934 for Rowing, £12,640,301 for Hockey, £6,425,471 for Judo, (but 'only' £771,439 for Karate) for the Tokyo Olympics. Winter sports as a whole gets over £22m, more than £1m less than just rowing alone.
Now if that's true, and I see no reason why it isn't, don't you think it's a little disproportionate?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Central funding for sports depends on medal success. British Olympic Association (BOA) and Sport UK make the decisions. As Vicky Gosling states Freestyle skiing has £7million for this Olympic cycle. This is based on medals won and I know from my involvement how difficult it is to get BOA and Sport UK to change their criteria. As well as the Freestyle athletes mentioned above the gold medal for single mogul skiing and bronze medal for dual moguls in the World Junior Championships earlier this month was won by GBR skier Mateo Jeannesson. Our top junior GBR girl Calli Carr was 10th. The Freestyle athletes have won many international medals plus top 10 results this winter, hence the continued funding.
Go back to the 1990s and the positions were reversed, Alpine skiing getting all the funding and Freestyle nothing. I know this as I took on chairing the GBR Freestyle Committee in 1999 to try to get funding for our Freestyle athletes. At that time the Olympic events were moguls and aerials and our athletes were mainly self funded with no coaches. Steamboat Springs Winter Sports club helped our athletes with coaching scholarships and parents paid for travel and accommodation.
Then the new Freestyle events came in - Slopestyle, Half Pipe, Big Air and Skicross. GBR was in a good position as there were plastic slopes such as Sheffield with features where the local kids could train year round. These were not rich kids but the locals from the comprehensives, not an elite sport. Then the snow domes started making freestyle slopes and we even ran some FIS events indoors in Manchester. The GBR athletes won medals in the new FIS and Olympic events and so BOA funding followed.
The stories about sleeping in cars to save money have always applied in freestyle - the things we did to put on competitions and training! Pat Sharples was one of the young athletes who won the European Mogul Challenge back in the 90s. He has been one of the main driving forces in GBR freestyle success and is now Head Coach. I was involved with the Freestyle Committee until 2018 when I retired as a volunteer after Izzy Atkin won our first Olympic ski medal in slopestyle. I now just ski for myself but keep an eye on what is happening from a distance.
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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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I think we, British skiers, need to do what we can to support them. I attended a business event (in Davos) recently and the Carrick-Smiths presented. It was very inspiring and a lot of us donated to their GoFundMe subsequently. I think in total we managed to raise about 25k for them.
Do you think @admin would be averse to setting up a new permanent thread with the GoFundMe(s) (or similar) for all the British ski racers ? No pressure on anyone of course but with the size of the Snowheads community if even half of us donated say GBP10 each then that would come to a large sum.
Alternatively, perhaps Snowheads could set up its own fund and then we could vote how to allocate the pot each year ?
If our sport is to flourish then it needs a next generation of skiers and, ideally, they wouldn’t all be our kids … and nothing inspires like seeing British athletes succeeding. If you look at something like rowing you can see what can be done; that was very much a middle/upper class dominated sport but the success of Redgrave and Pinsent really started something and now there are many more rowers from other backgrounds.
Anyway, I vote for us all doing what we can … and then, perhaps, that will put more pressure on the sport funding body.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@mogulski, maybe I am misinterpreting your post but it seems to say "suck it up, that's just the way it is" - or am I misunderstanding your pov?
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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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@Layne, it reads like an explanation to me
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Blackblade,
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Do you think @admin would be averse to setting up a new permanent thread with the GoFundMe(s) (or similar) for all the British ski racers ? No pressure on anyone of course but with the size of the Snowheads community if even half of us donated say GBP10 each then that would come to a large sum.
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+1
even if only 10,000 of the 68,000 registered users, though i understand some of these would probably no longer be active, donated £10, this would more than double their annual funding!!
and showheads could maybe get a bit of advertisement on their race kit 
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Funding for sport is the UK is more or less entirely devoted to getting medals at the next Olympics (the world class programme). I think it was John Major who instigated this. There is a tiny tranche of government money for grassroots sport from a different pot (https://www.sportengland.org/funds-and-campaigns/our-funds#funding-explained-10253) and a little for other sports.
https://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/current-funding-awards shows that Skiing and Snowboarding gets £7,165,763 towards the next Olympics and Curling get £6,367,525, almost as much.
If a sport has a bad Olympics its funding gets slashed for the next cycle, which of cause means it has little funds to develop potential talent in the future. It also means that funding goes to sports with as little international competition as possible. Hence the large funding (based on participation base) for sports such as curling and skeleton.
The individual federations also have a large part in developing future talent and funding non Olympic development and in this area skiing has a very low participant base. It appears that Snowsport England has only approximately 25,000 members, compared to, say, British Gymnastics which has over 350,000. It is these members subscriptions that fund national coaches, administration, grassroots sport, non Olympic development etc. (https://gbsnowsport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/DI-in-Snowsport-December-2021.pdf)
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@johnE, as regards skiing then performance in multiple World Cup events over a season is arguably a much better measure of a skier's world class performance level than their performance in just one race (i.e the Winter Olympics). However with UK Sport's fixation on the Olympics as the be all and end all of sporting competition and thereby determining the financial allocations to individual sports means that little will change. 
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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: |
However with UK Sport's fixation on the Olympics as the be all and end all of sporting competition and thereby determining the financial allocations to individual sports means that little will change.
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UK Sport is a government body. Its policies are dictated by the government.
To the general public I suspect an Olympic medal is of much more importance than even winning multiple world championships. A complaint you hear from some other nations is that you never hear of the British at World and European Championships but come the Olympics they are towards the top of the medal table (They are implying foul play). It's not that it is just the British Government think that that is what the people want to see and fund accordingly. I think it's called international prestige.
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@mogulski,
Good post, thanks.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| johnE wrote: |
| It appears that Snowsport England has only approximately 25,000 members |
As a comparison French snowsports has 100,000 members and a budget of 22 million
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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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OK...I'm in.
IF, and only if, @admin wants to associate snowHeads with a donation scheme to fund Ryding and Co, then I'll kick it off with 200 pounds, and I'll make that per annum.
Over to you @admin... 
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Beyond competitive snowsport, one notable issue that UK skiers share is a lack of a representative body.
Unlike cycling, climbing, sailing, walking etc we have no effective body championing our recreational (and mainstream) side of skiing and snowboarding.
The reason is probably because most Uk skiers ski outside the UK so there has never been much grass roots infrastructure to organise behind, at least in England and Wales.
Unfortunately that means that UK skiers have very little influence with any of the local or national bodies that control the facilities we use in the Alps or which govern the processes that affect our use.
This has perhaps become more of issue now that we are more isolated post Brexit. I’m thinking about some of the debates around qualifications, work permits, courses, training, piste safety, insurance, travel, environmental issues, ticketing etc. I wonder whether some of these issues might work more in our favour if we had an organised body lobbying on behalf of UK recreational skiing and boarding?
Perhaps that’s what the Ski Club of Great Britain does and there is no need or viable model to organise anything else ?
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You know it makes sense.
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| rungsp wrote: |
OK...I'm in.
IF, and only if, @admin wants to associate snowHeads with a donation scheme to fund Ryding and Co, then I'll kick it off with 200 pounds, and I'll make that per annum.
Over to you @admin... |
+1
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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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Shame this article wasn’t out a month ago. It’s much easier to get companies to part with surplus cash just before year end rather than just after.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Oh and yeah. I’m in. £
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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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@Peter S, I suspect the Ski Club of Great Britain has even less clout and members than Snowsport England (17,000 versus 25,000). Then you have private companies like the Britsh Ski Academy and others offering training camps and coaching. Two very different organisations: GBSki and BASI must fit in with this somewhere. It is all rather fragmented. I suspect the majority of skiers are not members of any of these organisations. How many skiers are actually members of skiing clubs?
Perhaps a better model would be the British Mountaineering Council with its 80,000 members and voluteers who deal with access rights etc and adided by professional staff. They also (uncomfortably) manage competative climbing. I don't know but what are the relative participation numbers in the UK between mountaineering and skiing?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| terrygasson wrote: |
@Blackblade,
| Quote: |
Do you think @admin would be averse to setting up a new permanent thread with the GoFundMe(s) (or similar) for all the British ski racers ? No pressure on anyone of course but with the size of the Snowheads community if even half of us donated say GBP10 each then that would come to a large sum.
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+1
even if only 10,000 of the 68,000 registered users, though i understand some of these would probably no longer be active, donated £10, this would more than double their annual funding!!
and showheads could maybe get a bit of advertisement on their race kit |
Nice idea, but I suspect that the number of active users here is well under 1000. Probably more than half of the registered users have never made a single post, and not logged in for 15 years! It would be Interesting to be able to sort on most recent post date.
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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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(duplicate deleted)
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Yes I'm a big fan of Behind The Brits on YouTube. It's actually better than anything the BBC do from a background and entertainment view. Those boys are inspirational and Laurie's 8th place was different level grit. Had me jumping out of the chair.
That Torygraph story is a shocker for many reasons. I knew they were underfunded but their total funding is less than half of Ms Gosling's salary, so I am told, and I'm also told she has never turned up to a World Cup ski race such is the focus on freestyle. The article doesn't mention any of that. She makes a noise about 'having to sleep in a car', which sounds too much like 'look at me, I'm suffering too'. Her job, as I have been told, was partly to bring in sponsorship and that quest has clearly been a disaster. How come the Quinnsmen can do it all on their own while their federation can't?
A skiing buddy of mine is close to all this stuff and he tells me that the cancelled Snowsport Awards cost Snowsport England and GB Snowsport jointly rather a lot of money (5 figures) to pull out of the London venue. I did look at the ticket prices and it was obvious it was folly. The money wasted could have gone a long way at the sharp end.
I'm all in favour of supporting the guys and the likes of the Carrick Smiths, but I think the problem is pretty fundamental at the governance end of things. A gofundme etc might raise a few grand at best (I'm not saying don't do it) but GB Snowsport should pull their fingers out and go after the bigger money. Who is holding them to account?
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FAQ
