WHISTLER, B.C. -- Olympic athletes and coaches, always skirting the fine line between solvent and broke, aren't immune from the global financial crisis. And U.S. Ski Team members were feeling the pain directly this week.

All ski team coaches and staff recently got the news of an across-the-board, permanent, 10-percent pay cut. This on top of existing budget cutbacks -- a rarity in a buildup to a Winter Olympics, such as the Vancouver 2010 Games.

The cutbacks will be felt immediately by some Nordic combined skiers. Dave Jarrett, the coach of the U.S. Nordic combined ski team, said some of his athletes -- up-and-comers on the "B" squad, will be asked to pay their own way to competitions in Europe this spring.

"We're going to have to ask some athletes to self-fund," he said.

Olympic-caliber athletes such as Bill Demong, who currently sits third in overall Nordic combined World Cup standings, will still receive full funding, but "the fourth or fifth guy on the radar" might have to pony up his own expenses, Jarrett said.

The cutbacks also might make it harder for U.S. ski fans to track athletes in global competition. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, which governs American alpine, Nordic and freestyle skiing as well as snowboarding, laid off a key employee who keeps U.S. news reporters apprised of ski-team developments that usually are unfolding at odd hours in odd places around the globe. The staffer, Juliann Fritz, was dismissed yesterday, said USSA's Tom Kelly, who stepped in to pick up some of her work.

"I was honestly just flabbergasted," Jarrett said tonight in Squamish, where his athletes were arriving to prepare for a World Cup event at Whistler Olympic Park this weekend. "She was incredibly good ... and dedicated, and did a great job."

The loss is felt particularly by skiers in lesser-known sports. Nordic combined athletes, who combine ski jumping with cross-country skiing, are elite athletes, but rarely receive notice in the press, especially in America. That's true even this season, when several Americans have posted impressive World Cup performances.

It's unclear what impacts the cuts will have on other ski sports under the USSA's direction.

The cutbacks come in the wake of sponsorship troubles for Olympic sports in general. The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed last week that one of its major sponsors, Home Depot, was cancelling its contract, following on the heels of General Motors. Other sponsors have been slow to renew, the New York Times reported recently.

"The ski team is definitely dependent on marketing and sponsor dollars as well as private funding and donations," Jarrett said. "With the state of the world economy, it's hard to get money out of people. It's a ripple effect all the way through."