Britain’s skeleton bobsleigh squad have warned their rivals not to write them off at next month’s Winter Olympics after revealing they have deliberately not gone “all guns blazing” during a mixed 2020-21 season.
The skeleton has been Britain’s gold medal banker at the past three Games, with Amy Williams winning in Vancouver in 2010 and Lizzy Yarnold achieving back-to-back victories in Sochi and Pyeongchang. However medal success looks more unlikely this time with Matt Weston, who sits 1oth in the world, the highest ranked member of the Team GB squad announced on Wednesday.
However Weston says the four-strong squad, which also includes 2018 bronze medallist Laura Deas and newcomers Marcus Wyatt and Brogan Crowley could yet spring a surprise.
“As a nation we’re so good at competing at the Games,” said Weston, who won Britain’s first men’s World Cup gold medal for 13 years in Igls in November but had inconsistent results in recent weeks. “We haven’t gone all guns blazing in any event yet. So the fact I’ve had a gold medal on not the Games’ equipment, and not the Games’ processes, fills me with a lot of confidence. So definitely don’t write us off.”
Wyatt, who took silver in the Olympic test event in Beijing last October but has since slipped to 19th in the world, has also shown he can raise his game. Meanwhile Deas, who is ranked 20th in the women’s world rankings, says she can repeat her success in Pyeongchang if she gets to grips with her new sled.
“This season has been pretty up and down,” Deas said. “But we’re constantly trying to learn and figure things out and we don’t roll everything out as a finished product until the Olympics itself. So I still very much feel like when I’m there, and we put our entire package together, that I can still do something special.
“I’m not dwelling on what happened four years ago. The sport has moved on. We’ve had to move on. I’ve been adapting to a new sled this year as one example of how we’re trying to innovate and keep moving forward. Because you can’t rely on what you did last time round, or the time before that.”
