at the Winter Olympics, there is a risk Team GB will get ZERO medals from this expedition into the cold in China - where is the bang for the 28MILLION bucks of lottery funding? It is all going downhill for Team GB at Beijing 2022.
Team GB arrived in Beijing confident they would win between three and seven medals. They still might. But as each gold-plated opportunity slips by – a loose curling stone here, a mistimed snowboard turn there – the sense of nervousness grows. Having talked a good game, they increasingly resemble a gambler on tilt, desperate for any kind of win.
We Still Have Chances With The slalom star Dave Ryding says he can spare the blushes of Team GB by saving them from their worst Winter Olympics for 30 years. he said: “If there are no medals when Wednesday comes I will be extra motivated, I will dig even deeper, do all I can.
Canada moved level with Team GB in the standings, with both teams now winning three and losing three of their six games to date. Team GB return to the ice for a showdown with Japan on Tuesday morning UK time, before facing China and ROC to conclude the round-robin stage of the tournament. They may have to win all three games to advance. Great Britain have now won three and lost three games so far, and head into the final three games knowing there is little room for error. This result puts Canada level with GB in the standings, and there may not be room for both sides in the last four.
In the mean time ..
Great Britain's men's curlers remain on track for the semi-finals of the Winter Olympics after edging past Switzerland, they sit second in the standings with five wins and just one defeat.
for some insiders there is a more troublesome issue: a fear that Team GB has lost its tech advantage. Take skeleton. For years it has benefited from superior helmets, aerodynamic skin suits and fast sleds. But in Beijing their new in-house designed sled has appeared more Lada than Mercedes. Ironically the silver and bronze medallists, from Australia and the Netherlands, were on British-made Kristian Bromley sleds. Then there was the Covid Pandemic, restricting travel and training.
some perspective is needed. A week remains. Team GB can still emerge with medals. On Monday, the brilliant 17-year-old Kirsty Muir goes in the women’s freestyle skiing slopestyle. On Wednesday Dave Ryding, the 35-year-old slalom skier, has his fourth attempt at an Olympic medal. The men’s two and four-man bobsleigh teams could yet win a medal. The men’s curling – and perhaps the women too – almost certainly will.
There have also been performances here – such as Muir and figure skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson – that are surely building blocks for the Milan Cortina 2026 Games.
A setback in Beijing will not be the end of the world. It might encourage UK Sport to ask what it can do better. Finding better ways to tackle the chronic lack of diversity in Britain’s Olympic teams is long overdue. So is deepening the talent pool and finding new ways to define success that goes beyond mere medals.
But perhaps some of this is on us too. As a nation we have gorged on Olympic medal success for so long that we have forgotten what it is like to stumble, to fall short – and, yes, to get back on your feet.
What Are Your Thought On The Winter Olympics And Team GB?
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