I enjoy watching the Winter Olympics. When i went to Oslo a few years ago I watched the biathlon which was great fun and a test of skill, nerve and athleticism.
I do find it frustrating though that UK Sport funds Skeleton and Skiing/Snowboard much more than accessible sports like Badminton, Squash, Table Tennis, Basketball and Volleyball.
Fosusing on a few individuals to get medals at Skeleton or acrobatic skiing and snowboarding hardly generates a legacy with people heading off to take part.
Skeleton has sort of created a legacy though hasn't it, given we got medals in it for 5 events in a row and then, despite missing out last time, we're looking strong to add at least 1 more this time. To do that as a country with no course is ridiculous. It's never going to be a high participation sport but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fund it when we've clearly found a way to churn out competitive athletes regularly.
Snowboarding/freestyle skiing isn't there yet with the medal legacy but again our funding does seem to be showing real results with 4 genuine medal contenders this time following 3 medals in 2018. In this case though there is definitely a massive growth in interest. The sports you mention we're never going to earn those medals that would generate interest because other nations are so far ahead of us and, in the case of the latter 2, the sort of people we'd need to be attracted to those sports would have a negative impact on our 'core' sports of football, cricket and rugby (and those 3 are so much more popular, and have so much higher earning potential, that it would be a very difficult task to turn them around).
We aren't a big enough population for us to put proper funding into everything so it is right to focus on things where we can turn that money into tangible success.
2022 was a shit year for us mostly because local weather conditions and covid travel restrictions completely fucked our preparation for it.
