GB Snowsport chief: City execs should sponsor Winter Olympics athletes, and go skiing with them
“If you know our British world champions, put up your hands,” GB Snowsport chief executive Vicky Gosling said at the organisation’s annual corporate bash last year. No one raised their hands.
“And it’s really sad,” she tells City PM, “because [despite] no snow and mountain ranges, we have unbelievable talent.”
Team GB head to the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics this week with high hopes. A record medal haul is the target and world domination the goal.
Two consecutive games – in Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018 – set the bar: five medals apiece, each Olympiad seeing a gold medal return to British shores.
Last time out, however, the medal haul more than halved to two despite one of those medals being gold.
Snowsport was left without a medal, unable to add to their tally of three across all 24 editions of the Games. That, Gosling says, is going to change.
But that requires funding, and that’s something winter sports get less of. Gosling says snowsports receives £1.7m of funding. “We only get £82,000 a year for Alpine [skiing] and £64,000 a year for cross-country.
“So it doesn’t go that far, if we’re really honest. And we have multiple disciplines that are decentralised. So while we are extremely grateful, we need to be smarter about bringing in additional revenue.
“We would love to attract high-net-worth [individuals] to our foundation that we’ve created in the past year. We’d love to attract brands, and we’d like to attract businesses.
“A lot of businesses are getting interested in getting involved in sports, and we demonstrated that the more investment that we have, the greater the opportunity we have to produce levels, and the more successful we can be.”
GB Snowsport proposition
Every organisation is trying to fund their ambition, and the market is crowded. Gosling has turned to good old-fashioned lobbying, however, offering sponsors the chance to buy time on the slopes with their athletes. It’s a pretty innovative way of securing financing, and one that could prove fruitful should Team GB be successful in Milan.
And a successful Games on the slopes is within reach. In the last two weeks alone 21-year-old Kirsty Muir secured a third title and fourth podium for British athletes at the 2026 X Games in Aspen, while Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale head to Italy as 2025 Team Snowboard Cross World Championship silver medalists. And the list goes on.
Consistent success is a different story, however, and it generates interest. US Ski and Snowboard has said it will consider private equity approaches, having secured a $100m partnership with investment bank Stifel. Gosling thinks it’s admirable, and possible here too.
“If you think about it, money enables you to escalate money,” she adds. “The US has got a fantastic foundation, and they generate something like $60m per year.
“So if we can have more funds that can help us elevate and show where something we’re capable of then, then I think it’d be a lot easier. Hopefully the Olympics amplify everything.”
Future of the sport
The Winter Games is set to have a European presence for many of the coming Olympiads: this edition in Milan will be followed in four years’ time by a fortnight in the French Alps.
And after a trip to Salt Lake City in 2034, Switzerland is favourite for the following Games.
It means there’s an opportunity to make the most of the UK-friendly time zone, and have winter sports thrust upon millions across the two weeks. A successful Games for Team GB could change how winter sports are both seen and funded.
The goal for Gosling will be a positive response when she asks whether anyone knows a British champion at this year’s GB Snowsport bash. The coming days will go a long way to seeing whether that’s likely. No pressure.