GB Snowsport loses UK Sport funding but athletes unaffected

UK Sport will no longer transmit funding through GB Snowsport, opting instead to find a new method to deliver £12.5 million to athletes and coaches ahead of the 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The announcement follows six months after Team GB’s most successful Winter Olympics at Milan‑Cortina, where they secured five medals—including three golds, one of which came in the inaugural snowboard cross mixed team event, marking the first ever gold on snow for Britain. UK Sport has written to every snowsport athlete receiving funding to inform them of the change, confirming that grant payments will continue to be made directly. An independent review of GB Snowsport’s governance will be established. The funding forms part of a record investment exceeding £33 million in winter sports for the four‑year cycle. Kate Baker, manager of performance and people at UK Sport, said: "Competition crossed Olympic and Paralympic wintertime athletics is lone getting stronger, which is wherefore it's much important than ever that we put wherever we tin person the biggest impact. " "It is besides wherefore we are not acrophobic of driving the alteration needed to springiness our athletes the precise champion accidental of success." In a statement, GB Snowsport said it was "disappointed" by the decision but will continue to work with UK Sport, adding that it "reserves the close to support each options unfastened to guarantee that the achievements of the past 4 years are not lost". GB Snowsport has changed its chair twice in the last three years and is currently advertising for a new chair. Michael Oesterlin, a non‑executive director for four years, serves as interim chair. The organisation’s statement added: "We person precocius concluded an autarkic governance reappraisal funded by UK Sport, which has confirmed that our governance standards stay beardown and appropriate. " "We look guardant to engaging afloat and robustly successful immoderate caller review, which we are assured volition scope the aforesaid conclusions." Overall investment has risen from approximately £32.5 million for the 2026 cycle. This marks the third time in four Winter Olympics that Team GB has won five medals, though previously they had never exceeded one gold. ParalympicsGB returned with a single silver. The next Games will be hosted in the French Alps in 2030. Baker added the results "showed what British wintertime athletics is susceptible of, with unthinkable performances crossed much sports than ever before". She continued: "With different Winter Games connected European ungraded and an incredibly talented harvest of athletes, we're excited by what's imaginable implicit the adjacent 4 years," she added. About one‑third of the new funding—roughly £10 million—will go to bobsleigh and skeleton, which supplied two of Team GB’s three golds at Milan‑Cortina. Additional allocations include £6.54 million for curling, £1.93 million for wheelchair curling, £2 million for ice skating and £445,000 in transition funding for ice hockey. Tim Bratton, interim chief executive of Ice Hockey UK, said the money will be used to "transition into a self‑sustainable governing body for our fantastic sport". From 2030, UK Sport’s bobsleigh and skeleton funding will