3 hours ago
5
Still the wait goes on. When Britain arrived in Milano Cortina there was heady talk of the country having one of its “most potent ever teams” for a Winter Olympics. So far, though, Team GB is still firing blanks.
It is not for the want of trying. Kirsty Muir missed out on a freeski slopestyle bronze by 0.41 points. Mia Brookes came impossibly close to making the biggest trick in Olympic big air snowboard history. While Britain’s mixed curlers, having coasted regally through the group stages, their mojo went awol when it mattered most.
Less than 48 hours ago, there were high hopes for three medals on Magic Monday. Now the dominant narrative is of heartbreak and pain, tears and tales of what might have been.
No wonder Team GB’s chef de mission, Eve Muirhead, has urged everyone to “stay positive” after three fourth-place finishes in barely 24 hours. But the fact she used the phrase four times in four answers, when speaking to the media after Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds’ bronze-medal defeat against Italy, suggested she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.
So will it be squeaky bum time at UK Sport, which has invested £25.5m across winter sports for the 2022-26 cycle, and set a goal of four to eight medals? Not yet. Because while medal opportunities have slipped by, even more remain.
Part of that confidence comes down to believing that the variance that has gone against them so far must shift at some point. Yes, Britain expected at least one medal from the three chances they had earlier in the week. But if you spin a coin three times hoping for heads, there is still a 12.5% chance you get three tails instead. And that is what essentially happened.
As Muirhead put it on Tuesday: “We always speak about winter sports and how it comes down to absolutely nothing and I think the last couple of days has been a prime example of that, hasn’t it? Millimetres, milliseconds. But you know what, I’m really kind of, I’m positive. We are only on day four and there’s a lot of great events to come.”
One longtime Team GB figure said that Muirhead’s view reflected the “realistic optimism” in the camp, with the team acknowledging the setbacks but also noting that multiple athletes had already enjoyed best ever results, including the likes of Ellia Smeding, who finished 11th in the women’s 1000m long track.
More importantly, the British camp still believe they have several aces left to play. The biggest comes in skeleton, an event where Team GB spend far more than their rivals, allowing them to have far more aerodynamic sleds and kit – a huge advantage. Think of it like Formula One. While Team GB has the equivalent of a McLaren, most of their rivals are in a Williams or Kick Sauber. Does it guarantee a place on the podium? Of course not. But it certainly doesn’t hurt their chances.
While the British team’s new helmet was banned last week, the indications from practice are enormously positive. Matt Weston – who has won five of the seven men’s World Cup races this season – has been fastest in three of the four runs so far. In the women’s event, Tabitha Stoecker has finished first in practice twice, and second on the other two runs.
If sledders like Marcus Wyatt can discover their best form, it is not inconceivable that the skeleton team could get close to the lower part of UK Sport’s medal target all by themselves. The medal chances don’t end there either. In the women’s snowboard cross, Charlotte Bankes is the favourite. Team GB’s men’s curlers, who won silver four years ago in Beijing, are the world No 1’s team according to the curling statistician Ken Pomeroy.
With Team GB still having Brookes in her best event, the snowboard slopestyle, and Muir having another medal chance in the freeski big air, you can see why the message emanating from Team GB is a resolute and loud: Don’t Panic.
The hope is the comeback could start as soon as Wednesday evening when the ice dance competition reaches its denouement, with Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson in fourth place. “We need to start building a little bit of momentum and I think we definitely can do that,” Muirhead says. “We’ve got to keep positive.” And why not, given there are still 12 days to go.
