I wouldn’t be surprised if there is only 25 or so GB members in Italy. Curling will keep its funding (maybe even increased.) but I think everything else will go. And it’s not going to be easy for snow athletes to self fund.
There's still 3 days left of the games, and Team GB seem to be peaking right at the end (men's curling final, women's curling semi-finals, good performances in halfpipe qualifying), but I've been doing a bit of analysis to see just how disappointing these games have been for GB.
Before the start of the games, I made a prediction of where I thought every British athlete would finish - I made a realistic prediction, an optimistic prediction, and a pessimistic prediction.
So overall, 47% of British athletes have overperformed or performed where I realistically thought they would finish, whilst 53% have "underperformed".
The overperformers include the men's & women's curling teams, Makayla Gerken-Schofield in women's moguls, Kirsty Muir & Katie Summerhayes in women's big air, Summerhayes in slopestyle, Rupert Staudinger in luge, Farrell Treacy in short track 1500m, the mixed team SBX team and Cornelius Kersten in the speed skating 1500m.
The underperformers include Hall/Gleeson in the two-man bobsleigh (albeit they crashed on run 3), James Woods in men's big air, Charlotte Bankes in SBX and Katie Ormerod in slopestyle & big air.
Either way, will be interesting to see how GB finishes off these games. We have a few remaining chances; my realistic predictions for the last few days were:
Alpine Team Event: round of 16
Four-Man Bobsleigh: top 5
Two-Woman Bobsleigh: top 18
Musgrave (50km CC): top 20
Young (50km CC): top 50
Men's Curling: final (already achieved)
Women's Curling: semi-final (already achieved)
Kenworthy (Halfpipe): top 15 (already achieved)
Atkin (Halfpipe): top 6
Kersten (1000m Speed Skating): top 12
I can see the two women challenging for top 10 if they have a good first two runs. They could well beat the performance of the four man.
Bobsleigh: Brad Hall 18th (59.95) in his first training run and 20th (1:00.23) in his second. Mica McNeill 10th (1:02.59) in her third training run and 11th (1:02.77) in her fourth.
Alpine Skiing: Dave Ryding 16th after his first run (55.13) and 10th overall after a second run of 50.44 for a total of 1:45.57
The four man team don’t really look like medal contenders.
I think it’s all down to the men’s curling team to get at least a bronze. Otherwise it’s medaless.
I wonder how many GB athletes will be in 2026. I doubt many after the major funding cuts coming. They is even talk of cutting all funding bar maybe curling.
Bobsleigh: In the third 2-man heat, Brad Hall came 10th with 1:00.31.
Don’t think we getting a medal there. Zero medals is looking more and more likely every day. I cannot see either of the curling pairs making the semi’s on their form.
We had 50 athletes this time. We will be lucky to have 25 in Milan.
Impinge if Katherine Grainger ends up being fired as head of UK Sport for the Winter Olympics which is a small part of the budget. But zero medals will see someone getting fired.
Katherine Grangier says she is not panicking yet. I bet she is secretly because she knows how bad it will be that £24m was spent. Funding was already cut by 25% last time. How low will go for the next cycle?
The only real hopes are maybe one in either of the curling. If they fail it’s the bobsleigh that makes up the best of the rest. But honestly I think zero medals is quite likely and will be the worse since 1992.
If any medals are won it be on ice at the Curling. Maybe Bobsleigh. I really doubt any will be won on snow which will be a massive step backwards. I dread to think of the reaction of no medals at all. That would destroy all the progress made.
Bye bye funding for 2026. 2014 and 2018 will be the high point for British Winter Olympics sadly. Even if somehow three is reached funding will still be cut people expect.
We definitely need at least one medal tomorrow. Muir is also a medal chance (outside I think). But these Olympics have not been great at all so far, early days though
The nightmare scenario is no medals at all. That would be a major blow.
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9-7
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I wouldn’t be surprised if there is only 25 or so GB members in Italy. Curling will keep its funding (maybe even increased.) but I think everything else will go. And it’s not going to be easy for snow athletes to self fund.
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