British Alpine Skiers Can Fail To Visit Vancouver Olympics

British alpine skiers team has a real chance of failing to visit 2010 Vancouver Olympics that are scheduled to be opened in less than two weeks. The risk of British skiers failing to get to Vancouver slopes can be explained by very serious financial hardships that the British Alpine Ski Federation experiences at the moment. According to latimesblogs.latimes.com the Federation can go bankrupt even before the Olympics opening. At the moment it is needed to find more than GBP 200k to pay all the debts, otherwise bankruptcy proceedings are likely to be initiated.

In the light of the above mentioned financial hardships experienced by the British Alpine Ski Federation participation of the British athletes in the coming Olympics is rather questionable. In total 15 British skiers including such leaders of the national team as alpine skier Chemmy Alcott and snowboarder Zoe Gilling can miss the Olympic competitions. Altough Chemmy Alcott managed to become the first British skier who get it through into the Alpine Ski World Cup finals among the 10 top skiers. Zoe Gilling participated in the previous Olympics where she demonstrated the 11th best result in downhill race and the 14th in combined race.

In order to prevent possible scandal the British Olympic Association hurried to assure the athletes and public that it will do its best to make British presence in alpine ski disciplines in Vancouver as full as possible. At the moment the Olympic Association tries to frame a plan that would help to resolve the problem with financing the alpine ski team’s trip to Vancouver. But the Association’s representatives refused to uncover any details of this plan.

It is expected that about 50 sportsmen and sportswomen in total will represent the UK on the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Besides alpine skiers there will be biathlonists, bobsleigh riders, ice skaters and representatives of other winter disciplines.