Former Olympic star John Jackson slammed Britain’s equipment after Team GB were left picking the bones out of a skeleton disaster.
As much hope as lottery funding was invested in the sliders rescuing the nation from its medal-free first week in China.
Skeleton has delivered every British winter gold for 20 years: Amy Williams in Vancouver; Lizzy Yarnold in Sochi and Pyeongchang.
Add a silver for Shelley Rudman and bronzes for Alex Coomber, Dominic Parsons and Laura Deas and that’s seven medals in the last five Games.
A week of disappointment here has meant an acute need for the precious metal flow to continue.
Instead it dried up completely with the skeleton men failing to trouble the top-10 and the women, including Deas, outside the top 20 halfway through their competition.
A tearful Deas said: “I can’t tell you now why the speed wasn’t there. I came to the start block in a great frame of mind and put together two good runs.”
Jackson, who piloted Britain to bobsleigh bronze in Sochi and knows a thing or two about getting a tune out of an ice track, was in no doubt the kit is to blame.
After seeing Brogan Crowley clock the second fastest start (5.04secs) yet finish 23rd of 25, he said the equipment was “absolutely draining speed all the way down.
“I don’t know what has happened with the British equipment,” he told the BBC. “It doesn’t seem to be working. There is just no speed in this sled at all.”
British Skeleton received £6.4 million in UK Sport funding for this Olympic cycle, second only to ski and snowboard.
They arrived here revealing that they had been working on ‘marginal gains’ with performance innovation specialists at the English Institute of Sport.
Jackson said he could not say whether it was a weight or set-up issue, only that “whoever has made the decisions on the technical development side, they’ve gone the wrong way”.
An inquiry is bound to be launched after Deas and Crowley conclude their campaign with two rounds today at Yanqing.
It may yet have a wider remit as British misfortune continued on a number of fronts.
Izzy Atkin, bronze medalist in freeski slopestyle in Pyeongchang, withdrew from the event due to lack of fitness.
At the Ice Cube, meanwhile, Britain fared little better with the medal-fancied men’s and women’s curling teams tasting defeat.
A day after trouncing reigning champions Sweden, Eve Muirhead’s rink went down 9-7 to South Korea and have now lost two of their first three matches.
Bruce Mouat’s four were also beaten, by USA, but later bounced back to beat Norway 8-3.
