'This can't be the end' - British Olympic skiers launch appeal for financial help after funding cut

Great Britain's Olympic alpine skiers have launched an appeal for help after their funding was cut by UK Sport. GB Snowsport confirmed last week that the body had deemed the alpine, cross-country and para-Nordic programmes to no longer be eligible for «World Class Programme» funding amid a wider reduction ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Ad Team GB entered four alpine skiers at Beijing 2022, including Dave Ryding, who was one of the team's flag-bearers at the opening ceremony in China and in January became Britain's first winner of a World Cup race with a stunning victory in Kitzbuhel.

Beijing 2022'He gave it his all' — Ryding had British fans dreaming of slalom gold in Beijing16/02/2022 AT 08:19 But with their funding cut, the group must now raise £800,000 in eight weeks to cover the shortfall. “My stomach just sunk,” Charlie Guest, who in January recorded the best World Cup slalom result by a female British skier in 33 years, told the PA news agency. “I’m in skiing, I’m very used to raising money, to finding money, to finding sponsors, but to have to find hundreds of thousands was something that was...I was just like, ‘I don’t know how I can do that.’ «It's something I've been training in for 17 years, and I'm just like, 'I don't want this to be the end.

This can't be the end'. »There are plenty of times when you’re like, ‘Why am I doing this? I should just go home, I could just go and finish my degree, I could just get a job or whatever’. And then you have one good race and you start thinking, ‘Yeah, actually I love doing this.

I’m so proud to be part of this team’. «It’s sad. We’re a bunch of individuals that poured everything we had into this sport, and it’s an inspiring bunch as well.” Along with Ryding — who