{"id":428390,"date":"2026-02-16T09:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/428390\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T09:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:01:07","slug":"winter-olympics-briefing-great-britain-are-on-a-golden-roll-as-records-tumble-winter-olympics-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/428390\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics briefing: Great Britain are on a golden roll as records tumble | Winter Olympics 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Super Sunday? More like Golden Sunday. From the sunlit snowboard slopes to the floodlit ice track, Great Britain delivered a one-two punch that will live long in Winter Olympic folklore<\/a>. In the space of a few hours, two British duos \u2013 Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale, then Tabitha Stoecker and Matt Weston \u2013 turned near-misses and nerves into history-making golds.<\/p>\n

Bankes and Nightingale stunned the field to win the mixed team snowboard cross<\/a>, capturing the first gold medal on snow in the nation\u2019s 102-year history at the Winter Games. In the wild, elbows-out chaos of the event, the British duo seized a title few predicted was coming.<\/p>\n

Seeded 13th out of 16 teams entering the final rounds, Bankes and Nightingale had shown little indication in their individual events that a golden turnaround was brewing. But Sunday was different.<\/p>\n

Under a clear sky, Nightingale delivered a composed first leg to keep Britain in contention. They were second after the men\u2019s run in the four-team final \u2013 close, but not yet in control. Then Bankes dropped in and overtook France\u2019s L\u00e9a Casta in a decisive move that flipped silver into gold. She was outwardly cool, calm and collected after she crossed the finish line. Nightingale launched straight into the crowd of GB fans to celebrate victory. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to describe in words,\u201d he said. \u201cWe both put in so much hard work. The singles were tough but now there are tears of joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale of Great Britain admire their new bling. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

If the Sunday already felt golden under the alpine sun, it only glittered brighter after dark. Just hours after Bankes and Nightingale\u2019s victory, Stoecker and Weston climbed to the top of the podium \u2013 this time head first. Great Britain became the first Olympic champions<\/a> in the skeleton mixed team event. Stoecker went first and when she crossed the line, the scoreboard flashed a worrying four. She had lost time in the bottom section and GB trailed by three-tenths of a second. In skeleton, that can feel like a canyon. Enter Weston.<\/p>\n

Already crowned individual Olympic champion earlier in the Games, he exploded from the start. Drawing on the composure that has brought him three successive World Cup titles, Weston clawed back the deficit almost immediately. By the finish, Britain were ahead, winning by 0.17sec. \u201cI knew what I needed to do,\u201d Weston said. \u201cI took a load of confidence from the individual event and I almost had to say to myself, \u2018Be boring and just get the job done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Up goes the union jack by Matt Weston and Tabitha Stoecker. Photograph: Andrew Milligan\/PA<\/p>\n

So as the sun set on Super Sunday, the story wrote itself. Gold in the day. Gold in the night.<\/p>\n

Heated Rivalries: instant replay in curling<\/p>\n

What began as a murmur on Friday has grown into gripping drama: a controversy over double-touching that has swept through curling and left players and officials bracing for every release of the stone.<\/p>\n

The issue? A split-second moment at the hog line \u2013 the point where curlers must release the stone. The controversy ignited when Sweden\u2019s Oskar Eriksson accused Canada\u2019s Marc Kennedy of breaking the rule during a men\u2019s match before Kennedy fired back with an expletive-laden outburst<\/a>. Video footage circulating on social media showed a double-touch. Kennedy maintained his innocence. Canada won the match 8-6.<\/p>\n

Marc Kennedy of Canada and the referees during their meeting with Sweden. Photograph: Joel Marklund\/Bildbyran\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

A day later, in the women\u2019s competition, the Canadian skip Rachel Homan was accused of the same infraction against Switzerland. The stone was removed. Again, video spread online that appeared to show a double-touch. This time, Canada lost. Suddenly the sport known for quiet handshakes and measured strategy was shaken.<\/p>\n

In the ninth end of a round-robin game against Germany, officials ruled that Great Britain\u2019s Bobby Lammie had double-touched a stone. Like the Canadians before him, his stone was removed from play. GB won 9-4, but the call confirmed this was no isolated incident.<\/p>\n

World Curling responded by increasing oversight<\/a> only to go back on the decision to ramp up officiating a day later, saying officials would now actively monitor for violations only at the request of teams. Some curlers said they had never seen the double-touch rule enforced with this level of scrutiny. Should the sport introduce video review?<\/p>\n

Hammy McMillan Jr, Lammie\u2019s teammate, sees a chance. \u201cYou bring in VAR or Hawk-Eye, and each team gets a challenge or two,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would maybe make curling more modernised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luc Violette of the United States men\u2019s team agreed officials may not be enough. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to officiate because we always say at the release, the hand\u2019s quicker than the eye. The officials are trying to do what they can with the rules in place right now, but I would like to see them be allowed to use video review.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not everyone is convinced. Sweden\u2019s Johanna Heldin said: \u201cIt probably disrupts the speed of play,\u201d while Sophie Jackson of Great Britain echoed the concern: \u201cWe\u2019ve spoken about in curling, for viewers, that we need to keep that pace up,\u201d she said. \u201cVAR isn\u2019t the way to go, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it stands<\/p>\n

1 \ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddf4 Norway \ud83e\udd47 12 \ud83e\udd48 7 \ud83e\udd49 7 \u2013 Total: 26
\u200b2 \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 Italy \ud83e\udd47 8 \ud83e\udd48 4 \ud83e\udd49 10 \u2013 Total: 22
3 \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 United States \ud83e\udd47 5 \ud83e\udd48 8 \ud83e\udd49 4 \u2013 Total: 17
4 \ud83c\uddf3\ud83c\uddf1 The Netherlands \ud83e\udd47 5 \ud83e\udd48 5 \ud83e\udd49 1 \u2013 Total: 11
4 \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddea Sweden \ud83e\udd47 5 \ud83e\udd48 5 \ud83e\udd49 1 \u2013 Total: 11
\u2013 \u2013 \u2013
11 \ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddfa Australia \ud83e\udd47 3 \ud83e\udd48 1 \ud83e\udd49 1 \u2013 Total: 5
12 \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 Great Britain \ud83e\udd47 3 \ud83e\udd48 0 \ud83e\udd49 0 \u2013 Total: 3<\/p>\n

Full medal table<\/a><\/p>\n

Picture of the dayCanada players walk off the rink after thumping France 10-2 to finish with a perfect record in the men\u2019s ice hockey preliminary round. Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Mark Stone had a goal and two assists each. Photograph: Fazry Ismail\/EPAFurther reading from the Guardian<\/p>\n

Schedule<\/a> | Results<\/a><\/p>\n

What to look out for today<\/p>\n

Times are all in local time in Milan and Cortina. For Sydney it is +10 hours, for London it is -1 hour, for New York it is -6 hours and San Francisco it is -9 hours.<\/p>\n

Short track speed skating \u2013 12.47am\ud83e\udd47: women\u2019s 1,000m<\/p>\n

Alpine skiing \u2013 1.30pm\ud83e\udd47: France\u2019s Cl\u00e9ment No\u00ebl hopes to defend his men\u2019s slalom title.<\/p>\n

Freestyle skiing \u2013 7.30pm\ud83e\udd47: Kirsty Muir will attempt to put her disappointment from earlier in the Games behind her in the women\u2019s freeski big air final.<\/p>\n

Figure skating \u2013 8pm\ud83e\udd47: figure skating pairs event comes to an end.<\/p>\n

Ski jumping \u2013 8.20pm\ud83e\udd47: the men\u2019s super team event makes its Olympic debut.<\/p>\n

Bobsleigh \u2013 9.06pm\ud83e\udd47: Kaillie Humphries is the defending champion of the women\u2019s monobob.<\/p>\n

The last wordKing Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo of the Winter Olympics: the Norwegian skis uphill during the cross-country skiing men\u2019s 4 x 7.5km relay en route to his ninth gold. Photograph: Matthias Schr\u00e4der\/AP<\/p>\n

It was good to share the top with them for a couple of days, but it feels even better to be on the top. It\u2019s a big achievement and will take some time to sink in \u2013 Johannes H\u00f8sflot Kl\u00e6bo after winning an astonishing ninth Olympic cross-country gold medal<\/a>, becoming the Winter Olympics\u2019 all-time gold-medal leader, moving past Marit Bj\u00f8rgen and Bj\u00f8rn D\u00e6hlie and Ole Einar Bj\u00f8rndalen.<\/p>\n

Hit reply or email OlympicBriefing@theguardian.com<\/a> to get in touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Super Sunday? More like Golden Sunday. From the sunlit snowboard slopes to the floodlit ice track, Great Britain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-428390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}