The Olympic favourite who could have competed for GB

Emily Harrop says she was born with bindings on her feet and poles in her hands.

On Thursday, she could have a Winter Olympic medal around her neck.

As a three-time world champion in ski mountaineering, the 28-year-old is a hot favourite to be on the Milan-Cortina podium as the sport makes its Olympic debut.

And yet, in a parallel world, it could have been the red, white and blue of the union jack flying in her honour, and not that of the French flag.

Born in the French Alps to an English mother and father, she was initially an alpine skier and was downhill British champion in 2015 - but choosing her allegiance was never given much thought.

"My dad wanted me to go with the Brits," Harrop told BBC World Service's More Than The Score podcast.

"I've grown up in France and all my coaches, all my training partners, it's all been through the French system. It was hard for me to turn my back on all that."

Harrop only took up ski mountaineering - or skimo for short - as a 20-year-old after injuries veered the course of her career away from alpine skiing.

"In skimo, when I started at least, the British team didn't really exist and they weren't actually competing on the World Cup," she said. "So the question [of allegiance] didn't really get asked."

And Harrop has never looked back. She goes into the Olympics as a three-time world champion in the mixed relay and team events, with silver and bronze individual medals also to her name.

She has twice won the Pierra Menta - "the Tour de France of the skimo world" - and has four overall World Cup titles.

But what actually is ski mountaineering?

In 2021, ski mountaineering was added to the Olympic programme for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games and will take place in the resort of Bormio in the Alps, though there are no athletes competing in the sport for Team GB.

The sport "blends endurance, technical skill, and alpine adventure", according to its governing body

Three medal events will be contested - men's and women's sprint, and the mixed relay.

The sprint events consist of both an ascent and descent, with athletes sprinting uphill with skins on their skis to provide traction.

They then remove the skis, placing them in their backpack, and continue climbing on foot, before a further uphill section on skis.

Once they reach the top of the course, they remove the skins, and ski downhill to the finish line.

The average duration of a race is about three minutes.

In the mixed relay, each team consists of one male and one female athlete. On the course, there are two ascents on skis plus sections on foot, and two descents.

"It is a brutal sport," said Harrop. "It's probably one of the hardest ones you have out there."

Harrop was brought up watching British TV and has been told, by French people, that her British blood has given her "more optimism".

But at the time of skimo's Olympic announcement, Harrop was actually on the verge of quitting the sport.

"It was becoming too much, training and working and just trying to earn a living," she said.

"The fact that it became Olympic and that we had these opportunities just made life completely change. And that dream then became more of a reality."

Harrop turned professional and joined the 'Army of Champions' - the French military's sports team which supports more than 200 top-level athletes vying for the Olympics and Paralympics.

Now, Harrop - ranked sergeant - is being "talked up" as one of the nation's best medal hopes in Italy, an added pressure she is relishing on the eve of her Olympic bow.

"We're so lucky already to be in this generation where the Olympics have come, because there have been strong athletes before us and there will be so many strong athletes after us," she said.

"We're right here in this historic moment and we have the capacity to go and fight for something.

"There will be pressure, but I think you've just got to think how lucky we are to live that pressure because it means that we're holding on to something that's worth something."