Beyond Snow and Ice: The Winter Olympics are a wonderland of speed, skill and surprise

The scale behind the spectacle

The 53-strong Team GB in Italy for the Milano-Cortina Olympics 2026 are competing across a handful of sporting areas on snow and on ice. Yet the real picture of sporting endeavour is far bigger. There’s a multiplier effect when looking across snow and ice: in fact, Team GB’s 53 athletes will compete in scores of sporting disciplines, across hundreds of heats, in the hunt for over 100 medals.

Let’s look at elite speed skater Niall Treacy for an example. At the 2026 Winter Olympics Niall is scheduled to race all three short track distances: 500m, 1000m, 1500m. With heats and finals, Niall may race a dozen times.

Funding the wide world of winter sports

Thanks to National lottery players, all winter sports – at one point or another over the years (since 1995) – have been helped by the money raised for good causes.

For instance, 33 of Team GB’s athletes at Milano-Cortina are being supported on the World Class Performance Programme – using National Lottery money distributed by UK Sport.

And while funding streams ebb and flow, overall the funding has increased over time.

The National Lottery links with grassroots rinks

Like all sports, the wintry ones start from the ground up. The grassroots or in this case, the ice roots.

Since 1995, National Lottery funding has seen over £200m boost winter sports. As well as money to elite-level performance, over £40m has helped build and/or upgrade dedicated winter sport facilities: ice rinks, ski slopes, disabled access, essential equipment. Facilities where people can learn to ski or to skate and try out a sport.

For instance, The National Ice Centre (originally Nottingham Ice Rink) got £23.5m for its build. Sheffield’s rink is another major facility funded, well-used by skaters of all levels and ice hockey players.

Often the funding helps local community projects that get people out and active, as much as into winter sports – so they boost health and wellbeing as much as Olympic hopes.

National Lottery funding has gone to over 250 snow sport and ice sport clubs across the UK. Paying for all kinds of things: ice time, dry slope projects for para-skiers, community projects, and kit like ice hockey sticks, pucks, or crash pads for speed skaters.

While Team GB guns for gold, the UK public should take some pride in their own record back home: 31 years of unbroken, consistent support to the wide world of Winter sport thanks to National Lottery players.