Sportblog | The Guardian — Winter Olympics Beijing 2022 RSS

Feb 04, 2022

How tech, talent and money turned Britain into a winter sports nation

A stark transformation means Britain have a shot at achieving their best ever Winter Olympic medal haul in BeijingOn an island not known for its snow or ice, something is stirring. Not so long ago when Team GB turned up at the Winter Games, they left with their medal cupboard looking barren or bare. Sure, there was the occasional highlight – and those of a certain age will see Robin Cousins, Torvill and Dean and Rhona Martin in their mind’s eye – but as a winter sports country, Britain carried a distinct whiff of Eddie the Eagle: harmless and a little bit hapless.The transformation has been stark. Between 1952 and 2010, the nation won just 12 medals in 16 Winter...

Feb 02, 2022

At last, the inventors of modern skiing have something to cheer: Dave Ryding | Andy Bull

Unlikely slalom victory in yet another of those sports the British conceived – then spent the next 100 years losing atIt was hard not to be charmed by Dave Ryding’s slalom victory at Kitzbühel. His story has a little of everything the British want in their favourite winter Olympians; an unlikely beginning on a dry ski slope in Pendle, a homespun background, training in a shed his father built in the back garden and a mulish stubborn streak that meant he graduated on to the elite skiing circuit when he was 28. That’s the sort of age when most people would be thinking about quitting already, and that, at 35, made him the country’s first World Cup race winner. “Ein...

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