Team GB will be asked to double best medals haul
Great Britain will be challenged to double their best Winter Olympics medal haul when their Pyeongchang podium target is announced this morning.
Team GB will be expected to beat the record-equalling tally of four medals they won at the last Games in Sochi – which should rise to five when one is reallocated following the Russian doping scandal.
The medal target announced today at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in London could also have an upper end into double figures, with each sport yesterday still signing off on the agreed numbers ahead of next month’s Games.
Doubling the Sochi haul, when Team GB won one gold, one silver and two – potentially three – bronzes, would justify doubling the investment in Winter Olympic sports since the 2014 Games from just under £14 million to a little over £28million. The medal target range for Paralympics GB at Pyeongchang 2018 will also be announced today and the upper end could hit double figures as well for a team who delivered six podium finishes in Sochi, their best performance for 30 years.
Team GB met their own medal target of three to seven four years ago, with each of the funded sports – bobsleigh, curling, figure skating, skeleton, speed skating and ski and snowboard – also delivering the expected podium results.
Performances in the four years since have improved and last year British Olympic athletes brought home seven World Championship medals after being set a target of between four and eight.
Three went to short-track speed skater Elise Christie, who continued to exorcise the ghosts of her triple disqualification in Sochi by claiming a hat-trick of golds.
Skeleton’s Lizzie Yarnold, aiming to become the first Briton to retain a Winter Olympic title, claimed bronze on her return from a year off at February’s World Championships, although she has struggled more recently.
Snowboarders James Woods and Izzy Atkin also won world freestyle bronze last year, while Great Britain’s women curlers finished third while representing Scotland at their own global championships.
However, Gracenote Sports, the firm credited as the most reliable forecaster of Olympic medal success, was last night tipping Britain to win just six medals – none of them gold.