Great boost for British Snowsports

Following on from the success of Team GB and Paralympics GB in Rio, two new initiatives have been launched - the British Snowsports Fund and the British Ski & Snowboard National Foundation.

The British Snowsports Fund will be driven by snowsports enthusiasts like you, who book holidays or buy products from partner companies. They have made it possible for you to make a donation to the fund as part of their booking process or via their websites. Companies involved so far include AMS Rentals, AMS Management Services, Ben's Bus, Butler & Wilson, Crystal Ski Holidays, Element Ski School, Ellis Brigham, Esprit, Inghams, Le Ski, Mark Warner, Meriski, Ski Bartlett, Ski Club of Great Britain, SKISET, Ski Total, Ski Weekends and Stanford Skiing.

The second initiative, the British Ski & Snowboard National Foundation is a grant making charity, which aims to give financial support to skiers and snowboarders wanting to take part in competitions who may need help with covering the costs of accommodation, travel, equipment or coaching. It will also be used to encourage more young people to get involved in snowsports at grassroots level and to develop their talent.

This new funding and support will apply not only to athletes who live in the UK and compete abroad, but also the great number of expat British living and competing in the Alps. Regular readers amongst you may recall our interviews with Maisie Hill, a young & very talented snowboarder based in Morzine, or Cara Brown who has held the British Alpine Ski Champion title for the last three years, based in Meribel.

There are plenty more British athletes out there (expats and those on home soil) who would benefit from these new initiatives, for example GBR U18's Mathi Avent (Les Houches), Danny Dakin (St Gevais) and Jed Mcnab (Chamonix) who are targeting the European Youth Olympic Festival in February. People like Jamie Nicholls, James (Woodsy) Woods, Billy Morgan, Billy Major and Katie Ormerod are already topping podiums in competitions across the Alps and could also benefit.

This new funding is important as there are a number of snowsports that don't currently receive funding from UK Sport or the National Lottery and competing can be very expensive. For example, Cara Brown says it costs her around £45,000 per season to compete, which comes partly from sponsorship, but mostly from her parents and BSS say it costs around £10,000 for a 13 year old snowboarder to take part in a Home Nations Academy programme.

Countries like Austria and France invest heavily in their snowsports programmes and can spend hundreds of thousands sending teams to compete abroad, whilst in the UK it's a totally different story. Hopefully these new funding sources will go a long way to redress the balance.

Soon, all eyes turn to the next Winter Olympics which is due to be held in PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018. With increased support from these two initiatives, there's every chance that Team GB can smash the total of 4 medals and 19th place that they achieved in Sochi in 2014.

Find out more about the different categories of snowsports Team BSS compete in, or how how you can get involved and donate to support these two funds. If you're an expat parent of a budding young hopeful skier or snowboarder, BSS would also like to hear from you to see if there's some way they can support you.