Countdown to Vancouver
The crowds are gathering for the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games which takes place at 6pm Vancouver-time on Friday 12th Feb.
Over the next two weeks athletes from all over the world will be tested in various sports and disciplines on snow and ice. For all of these individuals it is the culmination of years of training and dedication - and Olympic medal glory could be decided in a matter of minutes, even seconds.
The Team GB skiers and snowboarders may be breathing a sigh of relief that they are even there. Snowsport GB, the governing body for the two sports, went into administration just last week, amid tales of mismanagement and loss of funding. Coaches had not been paid, athletes have had to pay for their own travel and training for several months, some have only been able to get a fraction of on-snow training they would hope for when preparing for an Olympic year.
Luckily for our athletes in Vancouver the British Olympic Association has stepped in to ensure they can compete, and have made sure that adminstrative and financial requirements will be met. The skiers and snowboarders of Team GB, and their support teams, can now concentrate on the Games and their performance.
A Future for British Skiing & Snowboarding
Now, following a statement issued yesterday by the BOA, the future for British skiing and snowboarding may be looking a little brighter. A new national governing body, British Skiing and Snowboarding, has been formed, chaired by Colin Moynihan of the BOA. Post-Vancouver this new body is planning a "comprehensive consultation process", where athletes and all other bodies involved will be able to voice their opinions.
"The skiers, clubs, academies, volunteers, stakeholders and Home Nations will all continue to have an important role to play in the future," Moynihan said. "Their voices will be heard to ensure that British Ski & Snowboarding takes its place alongside the leading National Governing Bodies for sport and never again goes into bankruptcy."
It's a hopeful move not just for the athletes in Vancouver, but for the scores of British children who are trying their utmost now to reach international level and to get selected for the national team in years to come. The new body's first job is to find more funding for wintersports - as the chairman has said "We have spent £6.5 million over a four-year period for winter and £400 million for summer sports. That's unacceptable to the BOA. We have to sit down with the Government and all the stakeholders and ask the athletes what they want. I don't think funding for winter sports has been adequate in recent years. There has been a lack of focus on the requirements of the athletes. This really is a new dawn as far as I am concerned."
Why it matters
You might say that sports funding in the UK is finite. With the gold medal glow of Beijing behind us, and London 2012 coming up, why should a non-alpine nation spend time and money on sports that only a small minority will do, and that a much smaller minority will ever be any good at? The same could be said for a lot of Olympic sports - rowing, sailing, equestrianism - not exactly mainstream sports, requiring as they do specific conditions and equipment.
Becoming world class in any sport requires an extraordinary level of commitment and strength of character, and in sports such as skiing and snowboarding, that commitment has to start at a young age. Chemmy Alcott started skiing aged 18 months, she's now 27 and Vancouver will be her third Olympic Games. Ed Drake took part in his first international race at the age of ten - since then his family has borne most of the cost of his training, travelling and competing. To compete with the French, Swiss, Austrians, Italians, Canadians et al these guys need tremendous determination - to get to the standard where they can compete is already a massive achievement.
So if somebody has taken the time to get so good, how can we not acknowledge that level of commitment? And how can we pull the rug on their ambitions by cutting off access to coaching and expertise which could make all the difference?
If we are to produce champions in any sport we need to provide the pathway for young talent. We need to be able to find that talent, then train, encourage and nurture it. This is precisely what happened in British cycling from 1997, when a large influx of lottery funding provided the impetus for a massive improvement in facilities and training. Until then the sport was in almost the same state as GB skiing is today. Look what's happened since.
Having sporting champions is good for a country. It provides good role models and gives us all something to aspire to and admire. In a quick-fix TV nation, where the X Factor dominates, we should be applauding anyone who achieves greatness through years of hard work and dedication rather than a telephone vote.
On a more practical level sporting success brings a higher level of expertise and professionalism into the sport. Success breeds sucess as they say - or if your coach has been on the World Cup circuit then he/she will have a better understanding of it to pass on to you.
So let's hope that this pathway remains open for Britain's young skiers and snowboarders, who, contrary to popular belief, are not all over-privileged kids with rich parents. They may have been lucky enough to start learning to ski or board young, but the drive, dedication and passion they have for their sport is something that money can't buy.
Good luck to all Team GB's Olympic hopefuls. Coverage starts on the BBC from Saturday 13th Feb with the men's downhill one of the first events. See profiles of all the athletes on the Team GB website .
How and why to do a course inspection with Chemmy Alcott:
