UK Sport routes £12.5m snowsport funding to new delivery body as GB Snowsport is sidelined

Three weeks after pulling funding from GB Snowsport, UK Sport has named the newly created Sport Org as the vehicle to run Britain's snowsport performance programmes through to the 2030 Winter Olympics — leaving the national governing body facing the loss of its elite teams and a governance review it disputes.

UK Sport confirmed on 26 August that, after consulting a range of partners, it had secured an alternative route for public money to reach Britain's snowsport athletes and coaches for the Alpes 2030 cycle. The funding body has determined that Sport Org — a new, specialist multi-sport performance delivery organisation — is the preferred body to receive the ringfenced £12.5 million, and has made a formal offer to GB Snowsport, as the sport's national governing body, to transfer its funded performance programmes across by 30th November.

The aim, UK Sport says, is for funding to flow seamlessly from the start of the Alpes 2030 cycle in December, so that the performance programmes are "as unaffected as possible". Athlete performance awards will continue to be paid directly throughout the transition.

In a statement they said:

"UK Sport can confirm that, following engagement with a number of potential partners, it has secured an alternative vehicle to enable public funding to continue to flow to the UK’s snowsport athletes and programmes for the Alpes 2030 cycle.

"Earlier in August, UK Sport announced that, as part of a record £33 million investment in winter sport, £12.5m had been ringfenced to support British snowsport athletes and coaches for the Alpes 2030 cycle, but that this funding would not be routed through GB Snowsport.

"Since then, UK Sport has been working at pace to identify an alternative route to enable that investment to reach the hugely talented cohort of snowsport athletes on the funded GB performance programmes. Having consulted a range of partners, including the leadership of the snowsport performance programmes, GB Snowsport’s Interim Chair and CEO and the home nations snowsport federations, UK Sport has determined that Sport Org is the preferred organisation to receive that public investment.

"Sport Org is a new, specialist, multi-sport performance delivery organisation established to operate performance programmes on behalf of National Governing Bodies. Three performance programmes are already operated by it.

"On that basis, UK Sport has now made a formal offer to GB Snowsport, as the National Governing Body of the sport, for their funded performance programmes to be transferred to Sport Org by 30 November 2026.

"UK Sport is committed to working intensively with GB Snowsport and other partners over the coming months to ensure funding can flow seamlessly from the start of the Alpes 2030 cycle in December this year, so that the performance programmes can be as unaffected as possible.

"UK Sport is grateful for the positive engagement of various partners in the process of reaching this decision."

The biggest slice of a record pot

The £12.5 million is the largest single portion of a record £33 million-plus winter sport investment for the Alpes 2030 cycle, announced on 4 August, which UK Sport framed as a push to build on Britain's most successful Winter Olympics. The full breakdown directs £10,010,000 to bobsleigh and skeleton, £6,540,000 to curling, £1,930,000 to wheelchair curling, £2,000,000 to ice skating and £445,000 to ice hockey, with the £12.5 million ringfenced for ski, snowboard and para-snowsport athletes and coaches .

The overall package is up from roughly £32.5 million for the Milan-Cortina cycle, itself raised from an initial £24.2 million allocation. Snowsport's own share rose too: GB Snowsport received £11.9 million for the Milan-Cortina cycle, meaning the new £12.5 million ringfence is a modest increase on paper — but one that will now bypass the governing body entirely.

A historic Games, then a funding shock

The decision lands at a peculiar moment for British snowsport. Six months ago, Team GB recorded its finest Winter Olympics in the 102-year history of the Games, winning five medals — three gold, one silver and one bronze — to finish 15th in the medal table. Britain had never previously won more than one gold at a single Winter Games.

The standout was Matt Weston, who became the first Briton to win two golds at a single Winter Olympics, taking the men's skeleton and the inaugural mixed team skeleton alongside Tabitha Stoecker. Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won Britain's first ever Olympic gold on snow in the mixed team snowboard cross, Bruce Mouat's men's curling rink took silver, and Zoe Atkin claimed freestyle halfpipe bronze on the final day (Team GB; ESPN). The squad also recorded 24 top-10 finishes and a record five fourth places, signalling depth beyond the medalists.

Notably, however, every GB medal in Milan-Cortina came via skeleton, snowboard cross and curling — disciplines run through the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association and British Curling, not GB Snowsport. The freestyle and alpine skiers who sit under GB Snowsport's umbrella did not medal, a performance gap that sits at the heart of UK Sport's targeting logic: the agency has previously been explicit that investment is focused on freestyle ski and snowboard disciplines with realistic medal potential, while alpine, cross-country and Nordic programmes have seen funding reduced.

What is Sport Org?

Sport Org is a new entity UK Sport has supported specifically to operate elite performance programmes on behalf of national governing bodies. It already runs the curling and wheelchair curling programmes, which will continue under it into the Alpes 2030 cycle, and the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association has agreed to transition its programmes to Sport Org for the Utah 2034 cycle.

UK Sport frames the model as a way to bring more performance experts and resources together, drive efficiencies, and give athletes greater stability — a consolidation of high-performance delivery away from the often-strained governance structures of individual governing

A governing body pushed to the margins

For GB Snowsport, the move is a sharp diminution. The body, which covers 12 winter sport disciplines across Olympic and Paralympic competition, will no longer receive or administer the elite funding it has handled since 2018, though it remains the recognised national governing body and is being asked to formally agree the transfer of its funded programmes.

The organisation has undergone recent leadership change. Michael Oesterlin, an independent non-executive director for four years, was appointed interim chair on 13 August, succeeding Jason Cobbold, while CEO Vicky Gosling — in post since April 2018 and recently elected a vice-president of the International Ski Federation (FIS) — continues to lead the executive. UK Sport consulted both Oesterlin and Gosling, alongside the home nations federations, before settling on Sport Org.

GB Snowsport's response to the 4 August announcement was measured but pointed. It said it was "disappointed" by the proposed alternative route while remaining committed to working constructively with UK Sport, and noted that a recently concluded independent governance review, funded by UK Sport, had confirmed its governance standards were "strong and appropriate". It reserved the right to keep its options open to protect the achievements of recent years. UK Sport has, separately, commissioned a further independent review into GB Snowsport's governance.

The home nations have trodden carefully. Snowsport England and Snowsport Scotland both welcomed the record investment and the ringfenced £12.5 million, but declined to comment publicly on the governance concerns, with Snowsport England noting a post-Milan-Cortina rise in affiliated clubs, registered competitors and qualified coaches.

What it means for skiers and the sport

For the funded freestyle and para-snowsport athletes on GB's World Class Programme, the practical shift may be limited in the short term — grants continue, and UK Sport is adamant the programmes should be "unaffected". The bigger questions concern governance and the longer-term pipeline.

GB Snowsport's World Class Programme funding can only be spent on podium-level athletes, not development pathways, a constraint that has long left Britain's alpine skiers — including slalom specialist Dave Ryding — reliant on sponsors, benefactors and a separately launched GBS Alpine Foundation rather than direct UK Sport grants (GB Snowsport; Snowsport England). Sport England, which funds community and pathway sport separately, has channelled its own £400,000 snowsport investment towards indoor and dry-slope freestyle and park disciplines rather than alpine.

With the Alpes 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps now the target, and a formal transfer deadline of 30 November, the coming months will determine whether the cooperative relationship between UK Sport, Sport Org and a diminished GB Snowsport can hold — and whether the athletes at the centre of it notice any difference at all.