Team Gb’s Best Chance Of Winter Olympics Gold Dealt Major Blow After Helmets Ban

Great Britain’s champion hopes of golden astatine these Winter Olympics person suffered a setback aft skeleton’s governing assemblage banned its caller aerodynamic helmets for being nan incorrect shape.

Team GB’s Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt person dominated skeleton each season, winning each 7 of nan World Cup races, and making them beardown favourites to triumph golden and metallic present successful Milan.

But they were hoping to summation their chances of glory moreover further successful Milan-Cortina pinch a caller helmet. Yet having trialled it successful San Moritz past week, it has now emerged that nan International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation quickly banned nan helmets connected January 29, saying they “did not comply pinch nan IBSF skeleton rules based connected its shape”.

Team GB person now appealed nan determination to nan tribunal of arbitration for sport, arguing nan creation and manufacture of nan helmet meets rigorous information standards. The entreaty will beryllium heard connected Thursday, pinch nan consequence expected connected Friday. Weston and Wyatt will compete connected 12 and 13 February.

UK Sport has pumped £5,765,123 of National Lottery backing into skeleton sliders complete nan past 4 years, and person been rewarded pinch Weston successful peculiar dominating nan sport.

Last twelvemonth he became world champion for a 2nd time, beating his closest rival Wyatt by 1.9secs faster. While this season, Weston has won 5 races and Wyatt has won two.

Speaking conscionable earlier nan Games, UK Sport’s capacity head Kate Baker had admitted Team GB had been utilizing caller tech successful nan build-up, particularly successful skeleton and bobsleigh, and had been utilizing their ain upwind passageway to amended performance.

“Critically, what’s breathtaking astir nan measurement that nan skeleton and bobsleigh programme are now moving is that they are afloat integrated together,” she said. “They utilized to beryllium abstracted programmes. They’re now overseen by nan aforesaid capacity director, Nat Dunman, who you astir apt already know.

“She has overseen an integrated investigation and finance programme which has brought immoderate existent fruit, arsenic you will spot from nan performances that we’re already producing,”

Asked whether worldly gets deliberately held backmost for nan Olympics, Baker added: “Where historically, you could move up astatine nan games and you could conscionable propulsion retired a wholly marque caller kit group up, nonstop nan athletes retired connected it, and they’d abruptly find seconds. You conscionable can’t do that anymore.”

“Our invention squad astatine nan UK Sports Institute useful pinch a number of captious partners,” she added. “Whether those are related to Formula One aliases related to cycling, we now have, which is simply a unsocial position for us, our ain upwind passageway which we tin get into and trial consistently, which we are doing pinch our skeleton athletes.”

This is not nan first clip that nan Great Britain’s skeleton squad has been nan taxable of contention connected nan eve of a Winter Olympics.

In 2018, nan Guardian reported that different teams had raised eyebrows that they were utilizing custom-made aerodynamic suits that provided a “massive” betterment connected nan accepted ones. However, nan suits were declared ineligible by nan IBSF.