UK Sport has just announced a major increase of £16 million, taking the total winter sports funding to £31 million, while this is great news to some – especially for the slopestyle team. It has delivered a devastating blow to the British No 1 Olympic Snowboard cross athlete Zoe Gillings. Despite finishing ninth at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, where she just missed out on the final by centimetres in a dramatic photo finish. This result meant she did not meet UK Sport funding guidelines and Gillings has now lost all UK Sport Olympic funding.
In simple terms this now means that the entire Snowboard cross Olympic program - coach, technician, physio performance manager, sports psychologist, nutritionist and strength & conditioning team has been dissolved. If Gillings can afford to travel, she will now to do so and compete alone in World Cup competitions without any coaching, financial or technical support - something which doesn’t happen with any other nation.
Gillings commented on UK Sport’s decision, “I fully respect UK Sports decision, it’s obviously disappointing but my performance director made it very clear to me that UK Sport wanted a top six finish (reach the final) at the Olympics to continue funding – I knew this way ahead of the Olympic Games, so I’m not complaining. I was gutted when I realised I missed out on the final when I watched the photo finish on the big screen – it was literally centimetres that meant I finished 4th and this ended the funding.”
“I want to thank UK Sport for the funding they have provided to date and I’d especially like to say a huge thank you to the British Ski & Snowboard (BSS) performance director – Paddy Mortimer – I can say hand on heart he is absolutely athlete focussed and is a true credit to BSS. He says it how it is, he is honest and does everything he can to support the athlete. Despite not being funded I’m really looking forward to working with Paddy over the next Olympic cycle if I can raise the funds.”
Gillings is determined to do what it takes to generate funding in order to train and compete on the World Cup circuit, so that she can win back UK Sport funding and have a real chance of a medal in Pyeongchang in four years time.
To reach this goal Gillings has just launched www.PoundShaveClub.com – an online website where customers can choose from a selection of excellent quality razors at a fraction of the cost of high street prices and have them delivered to their door each month. Razors start at just £1 per month for the entry two blade and go up to £5 a month for the flagship five blade head.
“If there are any potential sponsors reading this then I would of course love to chat, I have an exciting four years ahead and it could be a fantastic journey.”
Zoe is getting married in August but she is already planning the start of the new 2014/15 Snowboard cross programme in the hope of getting the funds together.
