Why Team GB's medal hopes are not lost

For some years, it has been said, Great Britain has been punching above its weight in winter sports.

No ice track, few snowy mountains, and yet world champions, X Games medallists and World Cup podium finishes aplenty.

But right now, those punches are coming in the opposite direction - and they feel heavy.

Many expected Team GB to be on the medal table by now, with at least three, perhaps four medals on the board. Instead, the total remains at zero.

There have been three agonising fourth-place finishes for freestyle skier Kirsty Muir, snowboarder Mia Brookes, and curlers Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds, while a solitary error cost figure skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson dearly when they had been battling for a bronze in the ice dance.

But it has demonstrated just how tight the margins are.

Take Muir, for example. Just 0.41 of a point was the difference between bronze and fourth place in the slopestyle.

Had she not squatted on a landing on her final run, she would have made the podium.

Brookes, meanwhile, knew she needed to go huge on her final big air run for a chance of a medal - and so she did.

She landed a competition-first backside 1620 trick - featuring four-and-a-half rotations - but over-rotated at the very last moment.

Had she landed it cleanly, she would have won a medal.

Sometimes, those fine margins work in Great Britain's favour. Twelve years ago at the Sochi Games, snowboarder Jenny Jones won bronze - Team GB's first Olympic medal on snow - in the slopestyle by just 0.25 of a point.

"I could have very much been in fourth," Jones told BBC Sport.

"The girl who came fourth, she did a bigger trick than me, but she dragged her hand. On the day, I had done it cleaner. On any other day, she might have beaten me.

"There's lots more going on with the Olympics, mentally. It is that psychological element, it's a mindset.

"They are all so capable, and they can do these things, but it is about who has got that mental advantage on the day.

"We should not be disappointed at all in our athletes, we should be celebrating how well they are doing on a world stage. We have so much more to look forward to."

Britain's best medal haul from a Winter Games is five - at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 - but before the Games, UK Sport said up to eight medals could be won.

While eight now looks like it could be a stretch, a record-breaking Games is still on the cards.

Dame Katherine Grainger, chair of the British Olympic Association, says "questions will be asked" if that is not achieved - particularly given the £25.5m UK Sport has ploughed into Olympic winter sports over the last four years.

"Because it's public money, there's a responsibility for all of us to make sure the money that goes in is paid back," she told BBC Sport.

"We want to see great performances, inspirational performances, and that there's good value for money. I think the results will be brilliant and it will justify the investment."

Dame Katherine, who won multiple Olympic medals during a stellar rowing career, admits the talent within Team GB rightly increases scrutiny.

"We know the potential is to attain a record number of medals, and if that potential is not achieved then we have a responsibility across all of us to understand where that went wrong," she added.

"That potential is very real. There rightly will be questions if we do not achieve that."

It is too early to have those conversations, because all is not lost.

Team GB has plenty of medal chances still to come - and this is where we might see them.

Sport: Skeleton

Competition dates: 12 February (men's heats one and two), 13 February (men's heats three and four), 15 February (mixed team).

Matt Weston is in sublime form and leads the men's skeleton after two of four races.

He's a two-time world champion and won three successive overall World Cup titles between 2023 and 2026.

He won five of seven World Cup golds this season, picking up silver behind team-mate Marcus Wyatt in the other two.

Sport: Skeleton

Competition dates: 13 February (women's heats one and two), 14 February (women's heats three and four), 15 February (mixed team).

Tabby Stoecker finished in a top-three position in all six official women's training runs, including twice in top spot.

She has one World Cup victory to her name and, with Weston, has two World Championship silver medals to her name in the mixed team event.

Stoecker and Weston will likely team up again when the event makes its Olympic debut on Sunday.

Sport: Snowboard cross

Competition dates: 13 February (women's), 15 February (mixed team).

Charlotte Bankes was crowned world champion in 2021 and won the mixed team title two years later with British team-mate Huw Nightingale.

She has twice won the Crystal Globe - the overall World Cup title - and finished second in the standings in 2024 and 2025, the latter season curtailed by a broken collarbone.

She won her first race since returning from injury in January.

Sport: Freestyle skiing (halfpipe)

Competition dates: 19 February (qualifying), 21 February (finals).

Zoe Atkin is the reigning halfpipe world champion.

She has achieved three podium finishes from three starts on the World Cup circuit this season, including a gold.

She also won gold at the recent X Games.

Sport: Snowboarding (slopestyle)

Competition dates: 16 February (qualifying), 17 February (finals)

Mia Brookes came so close to a medal in the big air but has an arguably better chance in her preferred slopestyle.

In 2023, she became the youngest world champion in snowboarding history at the age of 16 with slopestyle gold.

She has won back-to-back big air Crystal Globes and won World Cup gold in December, as well as slopestyle gold and big air bronze at the recent X Games.

Sport: Freestyle skiing (big air)

Competition dates: 14 February (qualifying), 16 February (finals)

Kirsty Muir was devastated after missing out on a slopestyle medal but another shot is coming her way in the big air.

She is a two-time World Cup gold medallist, her second coming in the big air in Secret Garden, China, in November.

At the recent X Games in Aspen she won slopestyle gold and big air silver.

Sport: Curling

Competition dates: 11-22 February

Bruce Mouat's men's rink are the curling world champions, having also won the title in 2023.

They won three successive European crowns between 2021 and 2023, and silver at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

On Wednesday, they beat China 9-4 in their opening match against China.

Keep an eye out for Brad Hall's two-man and four-man sleds in the men's bobsleigh.

They have been no stranger to World Cup podiums in recent years and get their campaigns under way on 16 February (two-man) and 21 February (four-man).

At the curling, Jen Dodds will hope to brush off the disappointment of the mixed doubles with Team Morrison in the women's event, as they look to defend the gold medal won by Eve Muirhead's women's team in Beijing.