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Great Britain's chef de mission for Sochi, Mike Hay, insists GB athletes will go to the 2014 Winter Olympics despite the controversy surrounding the Games over Russia's anti-gay law, The Guardian reported.

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."