McNeill’s bobsleigh journey to continue all the way to Beijing

Mica McNeill vowed to continue her record-breaking bobsleigh journey all the way to Beijing after piloting Great Britain to an eighth-place finish in the women’s competition in PyeongChang.

The 24-year-old, with partner Mica Moore, dropped two places from their overnight position of sixth but still eclipsed the previous best of ninth set by Nicola Minichiello in 2006.

It was a significant achievement for McNeill who four months ago was forced to launch a crowd-funding drive to raise the £30,000 required to sustain her place on the World Cup circuit after being threatened with a funding cut.

McNeill said: “A lot of people might have thought we were mad – when our funding was cut it was a really heartbreaking and stressful time but we knew we deserved to come here and make history.”

Meanwhile gold went to Germany’s Mariama Jamanka, with the USA’s Elana Meyers Taylor taking silver and Canada’s Kallie Humphries the bronze.

Billy Morgan squeezed through to the men’s Big Air snowboard final, but British team-mates Jamie Nicholls and Rowan Coultas are out.

Max Parrot of Canada led the way in qualifying from heat one with 92.50, as Coultas scored a best of 84.50 and Nicholls 81.25, to place eighth and 11th, respectively.

Only the top six from each heat qualified for the final and Morgan improved his mark to 90.50 with his second effort. He stayed sixth to narrowly qualify for Saturday’s final as New Zealand’s Carlos Garcia Knight led the way with 97.50.

Morgan revealed his build-up had been far from ideal as he woke up with a blocked ear that had to be syringed.

British duo Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young were sixth in their men’s cross country sprint free semi-final in a time of 16:30.62 and missed out on a final place.

Mica McNeill helped guide GB to eighth place in bobsleigh.