{"id":276181,"date":"2026-02-05T22:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/276181\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T22:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:30:13","slug":"team-gb-chief-predicts-most-potent-winter-games-ever-with-sights-set-on-eight-medals-winter-olympics-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/276181\/","title":{"rendered":"Team GB chief predicts \u2018most potent\u2019 Winter Games ever with sights set on eight medals | Winter Olympics 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics<\/a>. Which makes the prediction of Eve Muirhead, Britain\u2019s chef de mission at the Milano Cortina Games, rather extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that we are taking one of the most potent teams of athletes that we have taken to a Winter Olympic Games,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have the capability to disrupt the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

That norm, between 1952 and 2010, was just 12 medals in 16 Winter Games. Then came a surge, with five medals in Sochi in 2014<\/a> and five in Pyeongchang in 2018<\/a>, before Britain won just two medals in Beijing<\/a>. But Muirhead, who led the women\u2019s curling team to Team GB\u2019s only gold<\/a> four years ago, senses that new ground will be broken by the 53 British athletes over the next 16 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a set of athletes with a real pedigree in terms of recent results in the winter circuit,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd while we are a nation that already punches well above our weight, given the relative lack of snow and ice, I believe this team has the potential to really disrupt the natural order of big winter nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

UK Sport, which has invested \u00a325.5m across winter sports for the 2022-26 cycle, has set a goal of four to eight medals. But it is clear that Muirhead wants to be right at the top end of that target.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a nation we are still an emerging challenger in many winter sports and part of our ambition at the Games is to show we are a credible team across all disciplines,\u201d she adds. \u201cAnd I firmly believe we will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is certainly significant evidence behind her optimism. In the weeks before the Games, GB Snowsports\u2019 Mia Brookes<\/a>, Kirsty Muir and Zoe Atkin<\/a> all won X Games titles, while Charlotte Bankes won her first World Cup race since breaking her collar bone.<\/p>\n

Now chef de mission for Team GB, Eve Muirhead is hoping several of Britain\u2019s competitors can emulate her gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Photograph: Andrew Milligan\/PA<\/p>\n

In the men\u2019s skeleton, Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt<\/a> have won all seven World Cup races this season and, according to the bookies, the men\u2019s and mixed curling teams are also favourites to win a medal.<\/p>\n

It helps that additional resources have also been pumped into technological innovations. At the University of Bath a flight simulator has been converted to simulate any skeleton track across the world, allowing the team to get hours of extra practice on the run they will encounter in Cortina.<\/p>\n

Weston and Wyatt are also waiting to see whether they will be able to use their new aerodynamic helmets<\/a>, which could give them an even bigger advantage. \u201cWe try to push the boundaries and find those gains, this is just one of the parts of innovation we do as GB and I think we do it pretty well,\u201d says Weston.<\/p>\n

Wyatt, meanwhile, is hopeful the helmet will be cleared. \u201cWe believe it is legal, it\u2019s currently being debated. All of our success has been with our current helmet, so for me it is the tiniest little thing in the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in sports where speed is the major factor, special tech skinsuits have been introduced to reduce drag in competition, allowing athletes to go faster.<\/p>\n

The great unknown, of course, is what other nations have planned. \u201cWe know that in some of those sports, particularly the sliding sports, the Germans run an R&I programme which is worth millions,\u201d says UK Sport\u2019s head of performance, Kate Baker. \u201cThey could pull something out on the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you spend any time hanging around any of our sports, not just the winter sports, you will see that they are all constantly looking at what everybody else is doing. I wouldn\u2019t go so far as to say that it\u2019s an arms race. It is definitely an expertise race, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere other nations have a sliding track, or a ski slope on their doorstep, they are able to do the kind of behind-closed-doors stuff that we can do more easily in cycling than we can in winter sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for all the emphasis on tech and talent, those competing know their chances could come down to a lucky break or how they handle the pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us really want to make the Olympics a big thing, but it is in reality and there\u2019s no hiding that,\u201d says Brookes, the 19-year-old who could end up winning two medals and being Britain\u2019s biggest star at these Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been scared that I\u2019ll go to the Olympics, do the best I can, and it not be enough. You know the whole world\u2019s going to be watching, and that definitely adds more pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muirhead agrees. \u201cA lot of these athletes have 20-30 seconds of competition. Then there\u2019s the jeopardy of winter sports. A wrong edge, that could be it over. It comes down to millimetres, milliseconds. But let\u2019s just kind of hope we\u2019re on the right side of the inch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team GB will hope to get off to a strong start on Monday with Muir and Brookes going for gold in the ski slopestyle and snowboard big air respectively, while the mixed curling team will aim to be competing in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Whatever happens, Muirhead expects the nation to quickly renew its once-every-four-year fling with winter sports. \u201cWhat does the Winter Olympics not have?\u201d she asks. \u201cYou\u2019ve got speed, flair and I guess a bit of chaos thrown in as well. And that\u2019s what people love to watch on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics. Which makes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-276181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}