Great Britain's chef de mission for Sochi, Mike Hay, insists GB athletes will go to 2014 Winter Olympics
Protesters in London join those asking for countries to boycott the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics because of Russia's new anti-gay laws. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
2014
Winter Olympics despite the controversy surrounding the Games over Russia's anti-gay law.
Speaking after the women's curling team were confirmed as the first athletes to represent Great Britain next February, Hay, a former world curling silver medallist, said: "We are better off being there. Why should we penalise the athletes? The British Olympic Association is a non-political organisation as we have proved in the past, even when the government advised us not to, we went to the boycotted Games of 1980 in Moscow when Russia invaded Afghanistan.
"And our chairman just happens to be Lord Coe, who was very strong in the fact that athletes had trained for a lifetime to go.
"Of course, the athletes will have the option: it is up to them to compete or not. But I think we have to give a loud, clear message to athletes that the British Olympic Association will be going to Sochi."
Eve Muirhead and her team of reigning women's world champions including Claire Hamilton, Anna Sloan and Vicki Adams were confirmed as Team GB representatives.
The 23-year-old, who made her Olympic debut when she skipped a different Great Britain curling team to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, claimed a thrilling final stone victory for Scotland over Sweden in Riga in March to win her first senior world title.
Muirhead is hoping to use that morale-boosting victory as a springboard to Olympic success.
She said: "If I got the chance to go to the Olympic Games as world champions, or not world champions, I would have chosen the former all day long.
"It can only be a positive going in as one of the favourites and we have to use it to help us.
"It is going to put a massive target on our back and weight on our shoulders but we know we are capable of winning world championships, so it definitely helps. But there is no guarantee
Comments