Winter Olympics 2018: 'Give more money to sports UK can practise' - Sir Steve Redgrave
- Published
Team GB's Winter Olympians return home
Future Winter Olympic funding should give sports that can be practised in the UK priority, says five-time Olympic rowing champion Sir Steve Redgrave.
Britain won five medals at February's Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, surpassing the previous record of four and meeting their pre-Olympics target.
Three medals in skeleton, one in ski slopestyle and one in snowboard Big Air came after £28.35m UK Sport funding.
But Redgrave says more should be spent on events "people can get involved in".
"The money should be concentrated on more of those sports that we could do. We're very good at curling. We could have more curling, more volume of people involved in that," he said.
"Something like skeleton, bobsleigh, luge, the alpine skiing events - we're not brought up on a mountain, we're not going to have that opportunity," he added.
"Netherlands were fifth on the medal table (with 20 medals), they certainly don't have any mountains.
"There is a very strong argument that we should be concentrating on sports that we can do at home."
Responding to Redgrave's comments, a UK Sport spokesperson said the body's "mission" is to "inspire the nation with Olympic and Paralympic success".
The spokesperson added: "Winter sports are also becoming more accessible with the rise in dry slopes and snowdomes providing many of our Olympians and Paralympians this year.
"We also run successful talent identification programmes into winter sports such as bobsleigh, short-track speed skating and skeleton."
- Published26 February 2018
- Published25 February 2018
