In an interview with insidethegames, Andy Hunt, the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) chief executive, said he had been “utterly shocked” when he took up his new role last year by the level of winter sports funding.

 

 

“You know £6.4 million over the quad – when you think we’ll take somewhere between 45 and 55 athletes to the Games in Vancouver, that’s a pretty extraordinary achievement,” Hunt said.

 

He added: “It’s something I’ve been lobbying hard on with Government and other political persuasions around wanting to do something much more meaningful for the winter sports post-Vancouver…

 

“We have got to take it more seriously.”

 

Confiding that UK Sport were “going to launch Mission 2014”, a winter sports equivalent of their highly successful Mission 2012 assessment process in the run-up to the Sochi Games, Hunt said he thought this would drive “a much more performance-oriented, measurable, quantified approach to…winter sports”.

 

“I think there’s a real opportunity in ice sports for us,” he said, looking forward to the possible opening of the country’s first long-track speed-skating circuit.

 

“We might always be limited with lack of snow, but there isn’t really a reason why we shouldn’t do better in ice sport.”

 

On prospects for Vancouver, Hunt said the team’s aspiration was to do “as good or better than Torino”, when Shelley Rudman captured Britain’s only medal - a silver in the women’s skeleton.

 

Preparations for those Games are set to ramp up later this month with a team leader/athletes’ conference in Glasgow.

 

“Despite the fact that we are in a constrained financial/commercial environment, we are absolutely not going to compromise with delivery of the team to Vancouver,” Hunt said.

 

With swine flu continuing to spread, Hunt revealed that the BOA had its own Tamiflu “stockpile”.

 

“We have enough Tamiflu for every athlete, official and administrative staff that will compete in Vancouver,” he said.
 

One would hope that by February next year, globally, we will have a much better picture about how the pandemic is panning out.”