How Britain developed an elite Alpine skiing programme on shoestring budget

There cannot be many chief executives of British sporting federations who sleep in their hire car in the line of duty, much less on a freezing night in the Alps. But that is what Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport, did on a recent trip to St Moritz. After their plane from Manchester was delayed, she and Pat Sharples, her head coach, arrived at the Swiss resort at 1.30am and found themselves locked out of their hotel.

Waking the athletes, some of whom were competing the following morning, was, she says, “out of the question”. And the only other hotel available at that hour was 1,000 Swiss francs (£881) a night minimum. So they made the best of a bad situation. “It wasn’t the most comfortable night’s sleep,” Gosling says, laughing. “We couldn’t even push the seats back as it was a cheapo hire car and we had equipment in the back. But we didn’t want to take any money out of the programme, so there was nothing else for it.”

Such sacrifices do not go unnoticed by the athletes. “It’s a team effort,” says veteran skier Dave Ryding. “We all muck in. And there’s a real never-say-die attitude in our squad. But it makes you wonder: what could we do with proper funding?”

It is a fair point.

It probably escaped your notice but 37-year-old Ryding, along with team-mates Billy Major and Laurie Taylor, finished the season just gone ranked sixth in the world in men’s slalom, ahead of powerhouses such as Italy, the USA and Canada. Individually Ryding was tied seventh in the FIS rankings, a quite staggering achievement considering GB’s men’s slalom team is operating on just £82,000 a year funding. Yes, you read that correctly. A week’s salary for an average Premier League footballer is expected to fund an entire season’s worth of training camps, air fares, food, equipment, hotels and staff.

The £82,000 is actually supposed to be ring-fenced for Ryding, as he is the only athlete in the GB Alpine ski team deemed worthy of funding by UK Sport (the rest of Alpine was written off as “not investible” after the disappointing Beijing Games two years ago). But Ryding prefers to share his pot.

“They [his team-mates] are just as important to me as I am to them,” he points out on a video call with Gosling and coach Alain Baxter. “Billy and Laurie push me day-in day-out. I personally don’t know if I could do what I do without them. But we need more money. Somehow we’ve managed to pull it off this year. But we’re staring down the barrel now….”

Ryding is not exaggerating. As it stands, the plan is to return to action in June with the team’s first on-snow camp. But no one is quite sure whether the funding will be there to cover it. The external sponsorship they had has ceased. They have a small donation from Skyscanner, but Ryding’s head coach, Tristan Glasse-Davies, has just been poached by the Americans because Gosling could not guarantee his wages “It’s a blow but he’s got a family,” Gosling says. “There are no hard feelings. They’ll pay him well. Fair play to him.”

‘We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul at the moment’

Baxter – who like Ryding massively over-achieved during his career, famously winning a bronze medal at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 which he then had to controversially give back after using a Vicks inhaler in the States which he did not realise contained a banned substance – is staying, but there is no money to pay for his wages. The team have no chef, no nutritionist. They can barely afford to pay for the three vans which operate as mobile storage units during the season. And they certainly don’t have drivers for those vans.

“It’s funny, but it’s not funny,” says Gosling, a former Group Captain in the Royal Air Force who went on to run the 2016 Invictus Games. “I’m in awe of them. When you speak to guys like Alain and they’re like ‘Oh, I was up last night waxing skis until 1am and then, you know, I’m back on the hill at 7am..’ And I’m like ‘How the hell do you eat? And cook?’ And everybody else has got a nutritionist, or a pillow fluffer.

“It literally got to the stage a few weeks ago where we were like ‘Wait, who is going to drive the van?’ And the only person left was Laurie [world ranking 33].

“We’re literally robbing Peter to pay Paul at the moment. But I’m so, so proud of them. Finishing sixth in the world this season is insane considering what they’re up against. They’re quite military in the way that they operate. It is really selfless. They get the job done, they crack on, they find a way through it. They deserve proper backing.”

Gosling is eager to stress the distinction between Alpine and Freestyle, which has around £7m in UK Sport funding for this Olympic cycle and has likewise enjoyed an extraordinary season with the likes of Charlotte Bankes, Mia Brookes, Zoe Atkin and Kirsty Muir winning medals galore.

“The money that Freestyle get is completely ring-fenced for Freestyle,” she says. “So even if I wanted to move some over to help the other programmes, I can’t. I’m audited every quarter. Besides, they need that money.”

What Alpine needs is an external sponsorship, private donors. Someone who wants to “go on the journey” with the team to Milan-Cortina 2026.

“It’s a great opportunity for someone,” Gosling says. “They could get a lot of brand recognition. When Dave won in Kitzbuhel in 2022 my phone blew up. I’ve never known anything like it. He was on the front page of The Times. There’s a real fascination with Alpine skiing that cuts through.”

Still operating on a day-to-day basis

Gosling reckons the team need around £350,000 per year to continue, way less than the £850,000 a year they had for the men’s and women’s teams combined before UK Sport cut them adrift. But significantly more than they have now.

Ideally, she says, they would hire a second ski tech, to relieve the pressure on Alain and fellow coach Jai Geyer, and free them up to coach. Plus some administrative support.

But most of all, they need to know their programme is actually going ahead and that they have vans and enough fuel to get from race to race.

“That’s the most important thing,” agrees Ryding, who began his skiing career on Pendle Dry Slope at £3.50 a go. Ryding’s background on dry slopes prompted the great Marcel Hirscher to remark once, after seeing a documentary about Ryding’s upbringing, “I was close to tears. Usually in Austria we use these mats for our shoes and our feet!”

“I don’t need psychologists or cooks,” Ryding continues. “I’ve been around a long time. I know how to look after myself. We actually just lost our worst chef so that will be a positive on that side! Tristan did the basics, but it was quite often the basics. And my equipment is taken care of by Fischer.

“It’s the uncertainty that’s the hardest thing. When the funding was removed by UK Sport right before the 2022/23 season I had to carry the stress through the whole season. And when you look at where I was ranked that season, it was my worst ranking of the last eight years so I’d definitely say it played a part in it.”

As it stands, Ryding will be able to draw from bib numbers one to eight at the start of next season, a significant advantage on deteriorating pistes. He is adamant he can finish his career with a medal in Milan-Cortina in two years’ time given the right backing. And he insists the future of men’s slalom is bright for GB, with the Carrick-Smith brothers, Luca, Freddy and Zak, leading a new wave. But they cannot do it without backing.

“I’m guessing but the Swiss or the Austrians are probably on £20m a year for their Alpine teams, with £3-5million of that for slalom alone,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it’s quite Cool Runnings, but yeah, the other teams do look at us a bit like that [the film about the Jamaican bobsleigh team].

“We’re certainly punching above our weight. But there’s no reason to think we cannot continue to do that. I think what you’ll see over the next 20 years is a very, very purple patch for British skiing. You look at the Carrick-Smith brothers who have had the podiums at the Youth Olympic Games, and others too, honestly the future is bright.

“We’ve all got better rankings than we’ve ever had. We all finished top 20 at Kitzbuhel last year – I think only Austria had more. So we are on the front foot in that sense. If we can just get everything locked down, and really start charging towards the season, I think we can go way better, because the boys are on the cusp of being ranked in the top 30. And when you get that start bib all the time, that’s when you really start snowballing towards where I’m ranked. They’ve got the speed, they’ve got 90 per cent of the attributes. 10 per cent more, and then they’ll be doing what I’ve been doing. It is that close.”