With less than a week to go until the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the national body which manages Britain's top level skiers and snowboarders has called in the administrators.

Snowsport GB has been in trouble for months. It was back in April 2009 that chief executive Mark Simmers' contract was terminated, signaling the start of the turmoil, and the organisation's collapse was only prevented in August by an emergency loan (read our story here).

However, since then, two funding streams have been deferred and Snowsport GB's overdraft facility has been withdrawn. The resulting cash-flow crisis meant administration was already a certainty last month.

Today, the long-awaited news was finally announced: Snowsport GB confirmed that "the difficult decision to place the organisation into administration with immediate effect" had been taken.

The timing is of course exquisite - and will cause the British ski industry huge embarrassment in the run-up to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver; just at the moment when the nation's attention is, for once, focused on winter sports. Fortunately, the immediate Olympic campaigns of the Team GB skiers and snowboarders are not affected: the British Olympic Association will see to that. But it's been no secret that preparation for the games has been badly affected by Snowsport GB's troubles. And of course, a feeding frenzy in the national media is likely over the next seven days.

Way to go, Snowsport GB! Not.