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British Olympic Association (BOA) chief executive Andy Hunt has admitted that the collapse of Snowsport GB has not helped the team’s preparations for the Winter Olympics.

Hunt, who is also Team GB’s chef de mission at the Games in Vancouver, revealed that the lack of sponsorship money was a contributory factor to the financial problems that saw the snowsport governing body go into administration last week, reports the Guardian.

"I think they've had a really tough financial time over the past year or two,” he said. It's been very difficult. It's a very constrained market for private sponsorship and they have very limited government lottery funding.

“This problem is not uncommon across all the winter sports – they have 1.5 per cent of the funding of summer sports, so there's nothing new here. The success of winter sports relies on friends, family, private sponsors and donors."

He continued: "I wouldn't say it's ideally what you'd want in the run up to an Olympic Games. It's not ideal, but I'm confident we'll get a result.

“After spending the last 14 months in this job, I've learned that sport is a complex landscape. I'd hoped that it would be completely smooth but those hurdles are there."

The BOA has stepped in until a new governing body can be set up and Hunt insisted that the situation will not affect the athletes’ performance in Vancouver.

"I don't think it's going to derail [their Games] at all," he added. "We've surrounded the athletes with the best support mechanism ever delivered by us to give them confidence. I truly believe that so, no, I don't think it will affect their performance."

Hunt’s comments about funding were echoed by BOA chairman Colin Moynihan, who said that the financial support received by winter sports in Britain is "unacceptable" in comparison to summer sports.

"We are in a position at the moment where £6.5m is spent over the four-year period on winter sports and nearly £400m on summer sports," he said.

"Those sports are basically getting 1.5 per cent of what the summer sports are getting and that is an unacceptable level of support.”

Of Snowsport GB’s collapse, he added: "We cannot allow the major governing body responsible for ski and snowboarding to go bankrupt within a week of the Games beginning. That lets down the athletes and that is unacceptable and has to be rectified.”