Katherine Grainger: Accessibility and medal potential are key to Winters funding

The accessibility of individual sports as well as medal potential will determine funding ahead of the next Winter Olympics, UK Sport chair Dame Katherine Grainger said on Monday.

Reflecting on a Beijing Games that brought Great Britain only two medals from a single sport – curling – Grainger was quizzed about what that would mean for the distribution of funds looking ahead to the next Olympics in Milan and Cortina in 2026.

“We will make our big investment decisions around the summer this year, and the main thing is for all the sports individually to go into a huge review process of not just the Games itself but also the last four years to see what worked, what didn’t work, and what can be improved,” she said.

“All the funding decisions are very forward looking. So the results from this one matter, they are a piece of information that will make us make decisions, but the whole thing is looking forward to Milan-Cortina and what sports are going to be performing there.

“Curling lifted the team, no doubt, but a lot of people, athletes first and foremost, would have been disappointed with the performances out there and we need to find out the reasons why that happened.”

UK Sport put more than £22million into winter sports over the last cycle, the vast majority of which was split between curling, skeleton and the skiing and snowboarding disciplines.

Skeleton flopped this time but has been a hugely successful sport for Britain over the last two decades while skiing and snowboarding seem likely to benefit from the focus on accessibility given the number of snow domes and dry slopes across the country.

Grainger said: “We laid out a new strategy last year. The decision was partly about really trying to maximise engagement with the