Winter Olympics: Funding for the few

Four-time Olympic skier Simon Wi Rutene has a novel idea for boosting New Zealand's performance at the Winter Olympics - a levy on the snow and skiing industry.

It was Wi Rutene who perhaps summed it up best when adding to the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) Facebook entry, commenting on fellow Kiwi Ben Griffin's failure to complete his giant slalom run at Whistler.

"Tough race mate! You will, I think, benefit from the experience. Only a few of us know how it really feels."

Those words maybe encapsulate why the winter Olympic Games are such a tough sell to New Zealanders.

Yes, many live in or visit snowy climes where learning to ski is a rite of passage or those whose children ski about the same time they walk. But for many, such sports are only something they see on TV.

It's not like watching running, swimming or cycling, in which most New Zealanders will have participated. The thought of jumping on a skeleton sled, taking off on a ski jump or going off piste with a rifle on your back is foreign. Hence the hoo-ha over funding.

NZOC Secretary-General Barry Maister is a fervent proponent: "We sat around after the Torino Olympics, unhappy with what we saw, so we put in place the Winter Performance Programme.

"We had expectations along with Sparc of two top-10 finishes this year - so it's a disappointing result but we'll continue to back our athletes and our sports. At least we have a structure in place.

"The reality is if we're to get better our athletes can't stay at home. In most cases, they need the experience of North American and European competitions which is an expensive business if they're not winning big prize money."

In some ways any New Zealand performance post-1992 is afflicted by what could be called the "Curse of Coberger".

When Annelise Coberger weaved her way through the slalom to win New Zealand's (and the Southern Hemisphere's) first medal with silver at Albertville, it ushered in a new era of unfulfilled expectation.

Wi Rutene, whose best was 17th out of 109 in the Calgary slalom of 1988, believes New Zealand runs the risk of focusing on medals as a realistic aim.

"Most of these athletes make immense financial and time sacrifices as well as getting valuable support from Sparc, but that can only get you so far."

He favours a radical future solution which utilises the revenue from snow sports.

"The Department of Conservation takes a levy out of every ski pass sold. Why can't our winter sports programmes do that too? We could build a fund to help send athletes overseas to train and race. It would be a great way to make use of the tourism investment in the snow business."

Based on 2008 estimates, 1.4 million ski passes were sold nationwide. Wi Rutene favours clipping each ticket for a sum such as $1 but knows industry and government backing will be required to make it work.

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Most Winter Olympic sports are rarely watched by the New Zealand public. In contrast to that, the athletes of this campaign have had an unprecedented boost in profile with the arrival of Sky Sport and Prime as host broadcasters.

In past coverage of Winter Games, athletes accepted their place as part of the highlights package fitted around the likes of Coronation St.

This time there has been extensive coverage on several channels and athlete publicity trailers have been prevalent.

The flipside is that more interest and consequent expectation means the public feel let down on the basis of perceived disappointing results, especially when Sparc money is involved.

It begs the question: Do the New Zealand athletes deserve a continuation of their funding as a whole? If you base it on Summer Olympics credentials (finishing in the top 16) the answer is 'no'. Only three athletes placed in the top half of their fields and there were four top-16 places in total.

But to cut funding would further condemn the Winter Olympic movement. It already operates as a misnomer. Essentially it is just a European/North American with a dash of East Asia event. The medal table has neither an African nor South American athlete in sight.

This disadvantage is further underlined by the fact ski- jump, cross-country skiing and biathlon are bracketed under the title Nordic sports, suggesting Scandinavian countries might be more than a dab hand.

In relative terms, the New Zealand campaign still had to operate on a 'No 8 wire' mentality even with government (through Sparc) and IOC funding (through Solidarity movement scholarships).

This has created scenes where American alpine skiers were incredulous when Tim Cafe and Griffin revealed they had to wax their own skis rather than have a 'technician'.

Kiwi athletes also need such investment to get overseas experience. Examples are speed skater Shane Dobbin, who learned his trade in two years as part of a professional team in the Netherlands and short-track expert Blake Skjellerup training with Latvians and Belgians in Calgary.

The principle of Olympic funding might best be modelled along the lines of student loans. If you meet expectations, albeit lower than summer sports, you are worthy of the investment but you are expected to repay this with results.

It's much like moving into a profession post-university with better skills to contribute back to society. If you buy into that concept, you must also be prepared to give back once retired, so each sport isn't left reinventing the cycle.