Bell sounding the alarm as winter Olympians become poor relations

As the Winter Games in Vancouver get under way today, Harrogate-raised Olympian Graham Bell hits out over the handling of the financial crisis affecting the British team. Danny Wright reports.

FORMER Olympic skier Graham Bell has labelled the body responsible for distributing sports funding in the UK as "next to useless" following the collapse of the British skiing federation.

SnowsportGB, formerly known as the British Ski and Snowboarding Federation, the body charged with managing Britain's skiing and snowboarding Olympic hopefuls, went into administration last week after suffering financial difficulties.

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The BSSF needed a 200,000 cash injection to remain in business after losing revenue from the private sector and having their 30,000 overdraft facility from the Royal Bank of Scotland withdrawn.

Bell, a five-time Olympian, criticised UK Sport's handling of the situation ahead of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which commence today, saying they had put the future of the sport in jeopardy.

The British Olympic Association took over the running of the preparations to ensure the 14-strong British ski team could participate in Canada, although no emergency funding from UK Sport – who distribute government and lottery money to sports in the UK – has been forthcoming.

The situation was only alleviated yesterday when Team GB Ltd was recognised by the International Ski Federation as the body to take over the running of the British ski team.

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More than 100,000 has been raised by the new body in six days to ensure the ski team – including four skiers, four snowboarders, three cross-country skiers and three freestyle skiers, plus their coaches and support teams – could go to Vancouver.

Competitors and coaches have had to use their own funds to maintain their training regimes in the interim, leaving many with spiralling debts. Chemmy Alcott, the skier who will compete in five events, is believed to have spent 20,000 funding her own training on the premise the BSSF would pay her back.

The BOA is to hold a consultation after the games to restructure how the sport is governed, and promised the new system would be "independent and athlete-focused."

BOA chairman Colin Moynihan said yesterday: "This has to be a turning point for winter sports. We have 6.5m spent over a four-year period for winter and 400m for summer sports. That's unacceptable to the BOA.

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"We have to sit down with the government and all the stakeholders, and to ask the athletes what they want."

Bell believes UK Sport's role in the saga has damaged Britain's chances of winning medals in skiing and snowboarding.

The former Harrogate resident, who used the town's now-defunct ski centre as his training base, told the Yorkshire Post: "UK Sport have been pretty much next to useless in helping out the situation and it seems to me that they've got their sights set on London 2012 and all of the teams going out to Vancouver have been pretty much over-looked – and have been over-looked for the last few years.

"Under UK Sport's policy over the past 10 years or more since the lottery came in, the rich sports have got richer and the poor sports have got poorer – it is happening across the board.

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"There are some sports that receive no funding whatsoever. If you do get a talented youngster coming through in a sport that UK Sport hasn't deemed a medal potential sport then they're on their own.

"That's where the skiers are right now.

"It's not exactly an ideal situation. In snowsports, it's obviously had a big effect on the programmes of our best medal prospects, Chemmy Alcott and (snowboarder) Zoe Gillings.

"It's come to a head at exactly the wrong time. It's pretty dire."

UK Sport said they had invested heavily in Team GB's snowsports team, ensuring Alcott's and Gillings's preparations could continue for Vancouver. They also insisted they could not bail out failing bodies "without a further risk to public funds."

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Yesterday, sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe responded to Moynihan's comments by saying: "We are investing record amounts of public money in our Winter Olympians for Vancouver – double the amount than for Salt Lake City in 2002.

"We have complete confidence in UK Sport's 'no compromise approach' – funding athletes who are world class and have a genuine chance of winning medals.

"This worked superbly in Beijing and has ensured a strong British team is out in Vancouver. If the team come back with the targeted three medals it'll be Britain's best Winter Olympics performance for decades and an important step forward for winter sports in this country."

A UK Sport spokesperson added: "While we will continue to do what we can to help a successful outcome, SnowsportGB is ultimately responsible for managing its own finances and ensuring the sport is well governed."

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Bell, who presents the BBC's Ski Sunday programme, claimed the calamitous timing of BSSF's demise would discourage youngsters from taking up snow sports, but insisted the market in the UK was there to be exploited.

He believes this would harness new talent in the process but insisted an overhaul of their management would be needed, given Britain's low profile at the winter games has seen just 20 medals won since their formation in 1924.

Bell said: "The BOA, Ski Club of Great Britain and Ski Instructors' Association are organisations that would benefit from having top-level skiers performing internationally. I got into skiing because it was the one sport I enjoyed above all others. I didn't care when I was 10 years old what the funding situation was with skiing or how well respected the sport was.

"That is the case with the kids that are getting into it but the parents are saying 'How can my son or daughter make it to the top when it is so badly funded?'

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"I think skiing and snowboarding needs to look after itself a bit better – you clearly can't rely on UK Sport to do anything."

Life and times of Graham Bell

Age: 44.

Born: 1966, Akrotiri, Cyprus.

Background: Lived and trained in Harrogate for 10 years.

Current job: Presents BBC's Ski Sunday programme.

Honours:

Competed in five Winter Olympics – 1984 (Sarajevo), 1988 (Calgary), 1992 (Albertville), 1994 (Lillehammer), 1998 (Nagano).

Eight-time British Ski champion.

Silver medallist in downhill at the 1984 World Junior Championships.

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