Meet Team GB’s Winter Olympics medal hopefuls with record haul eyed | Other | Sport

Team GB is aiming for its most successful Winter Olympics at the Milano Cortina Games. UK Sport, the funding body for Olympic and Paralympic sports in the UK, is hopeful of achieving between four and eight medals in northern Italy.

Britain’s best performance to date at a Winter Games came at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018, with five medals (one gold) being clinched. But Team GB performance chiefs are setting their hopes even higher this time around. That’s because the Team GB squad bound for Italy has world champions, X Games gold medallists and World Cup podium athletes among them. The 2024/25 season saw Britain’s winter athletes win nine World Championship medals across various sports.

British skiers and snowboarders achieved 28 major podiums in Olympic disciplines, won three Crystal Globes (overall World Cup titles) and one World Championship title, through Zoe Atkin. And chef de mission Eve Muirhead, who won curling gold in 2022, said preparations had been “meticulous” with a “focus on creating the conditions that allow athletes to deliver when it matters most.”

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She added: “The potential within this team is exceptionally high, and while we don’t always benefit from the same ease of access to snow and ice as some of our rivals, when I look at the class of 2026, I see a real opportunity to challenge the status quo.”

With the bar set high for Team GB in the men’s skeleton, men’s and mixed curling teams, as well as skiing and snowboarding, Express Sport takes a look at our favourites to bring medals home from Italy.

Matt Weston – Skeleton

Two-time men’s skeleton world champion Matt Weston won three successive overall World Cup titles between 2023 and 2026. Weston, who leads the men’s rankings in the sport, won five of the seven World Cup races this season. He claimed silver behind team-mate Marcus Wyatt in the other two, with the latter expected to join Weston on the podium.

Mia Brookes – Snowboarding (big air, slopestyle)

In 2023, Brookes became the youngest world champion in snowboarding history aged just 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. Brookes could become Team GB’s first athlete to claim Olympic gold or silver on snow.

Kirsty Muir – Freestyle skiing (big air, slopestyle)

Two-time World Cup gold medallist Muir won slopestyle gold in Tignes last season and the big air title in Secret Garden, China, in November. During the recent X Games in Aspen, she claimed slopestyle gold and big air silver.

Zoe Atkin – Freestyle skiing (halfpipe)

Atkin is the current halfpipe world champion and has clinched three podium finishes from three starts on the World Cup circuit this season, including a gold. She also managed to win gold at the recent X Games.

Charlotte Bankes – Snowboarding (snowboard cross)

Bankes became world champion in 2021 and claimed the mixed team title two years later with British team-mate Huw Nightingale. She has won the Crystal Globe overall World Cup title twice, while finishing second in the standings in 2024 and 2025, with the latter season being derailed due to a broken collarbone.

Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear – Figure skating (ice dance)

The pair could win a first Olympic figure skating medal for Britain since 1994. Fear and Gibson are considered the best British figure-skating pair since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. They have also won four European medals and are two-time Grand Prix Final bronze medallists.

Team Mouat – Curling

Bruce Mouat’s British curlers are expected to add to their two medals from 2022. They are the current 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.