The Road to Milano-Cortina ‘26

[Surreal 33]

Great start to the X Games for GB with Double Gold!

 

Mia Brookes beats all the other Olympic favourites to claim Gold in Slopestyle while Zoe Atkin also claimed Gold!

 

Chances for more medals in Aspen later in the weekend with Muir in her events and Mia going again in the big air.

Edited January 24 by Surreal

[Surreal 33]

On 1/23/2026 at 6:45 PM, JamDH said:

What's the deal with biathlon then? What's going on?

Been doing some investigating and Jacques Jefferies, who qualified the quota for the Men, posted on his Insta yesterday "Exciting few weeks ahead keep your eyes peeled 👀" - Sounds like a Man who's just been selected for the Olympics to me. 

Edited January 25 by Surreal

[Surreal 33]

On 1/24/2026 at 12:26 AM, Surreal said:

Great start to the X Games for GB with Double Gold!

 

Mia Brookes beats all the other Olympic favourites to claim Gold in Slopestyle while Zoe Atkin also claimed Gold!

 

Chances for more medals in Aspen later in the weekend with Muir in her events and Mia going again in the big air.

British Women on fire at X Games! 3rd Gold for a 3rd different athlete with Kirsty Muir on slopestyle! Kirsty backed it up later in the day with a close silver in big air despite a massive score of 94! 

 

Meanwhile, Mia Brookes followed up her snowboard slopestyle Gold with a Bronze in the big air. Thats's 5 medals for the Brits this year - Our most ever at a single Winter X Games & first time with multiple Golds!

 

We're in a great place in Park + Pipe going into the Olympics.

[Dragon 2,066]

On 1/25/2026 at 8:29 AM, Surreal said:

Been doing some investigating and Jacques Jefferies, who qualified the quota for the Men, posted on his Insta yesterday "Exciting few weeks ahead keep your eyes peeled 👀" - Sounds like a Man who's just been selected for the Olympics to me. 

It would make sense for him to be picked as British Biathlon made an effort to get him to move from France to Britain.

I have much more doubt about the quota of a British woman 

[Jon 60]

Team GB confirm Jacques Jeffries and Shawna Pendry take up the quota allocations for Biathlon.

 

With that, Team GB are sending a total of 53 athletes to the 2026 Winter Games.

Edited January 26 by Jon

[Jwacoles 1]

On 1/26/2026 at 9:44 AM, Dragon said:

It would make sense for him to be picked as British Biathlon made an effort to get him to move from France to Britain.

I have much more doubt about the quota of a British woman 

I'm not sure they had a qualifying criteria which was set 2 years ago. So had no choice but to select both. But are the biathletes are not as good performance wide as the female short-track and alpine skiers? and how do you encourage people to compete and attract sponsorship? Especially if you are seen to adversely affecting women. The BOA only want medal headlines and has never understood relocated places. You can't just pick medallists off trees. Experience is key. Getting people to try different sports is one way, look at Skeleton and Bobsleigh. The BOA have a downer on Skiing as the criteria for selection is tough and doesn't even allow for a younger skier to be selected for experience. We however also, especially for the men have a ridiculous criteria, the same in Cross Country. We me the criteria for BOA funding after Dave Ryding's world Championship 8th place and was turned down, despite also medals at Olympic Youth events.  They should get wild card places. Major's world cup points are worth less as he doesn't ski and other discipline, than someone scoring less but competing in 2 events.  And one man or women teams in 2 events can qualify 2 extra places not one. an look how many places Chechia got in the women's with one world cup points scorer, albeit a number of skiers competing at continental cups but not doing that well. As far as the men's short-track not selected, was that due to one man qualifying twice? And the bobsleigh, Nick has been doing better at 2-man but they changed the criteria to cut competitors so you qualified for both 2 and 4 man, maybe he couldn't only compete in 2-man. There are also people qualifying in two sports or mixed as well as team curling, and so spare places in the village so why they couldn't give back to Alpine or Cross-County or even tripartite. Also we deserve a team in the Cross Country we got a place in the team figure skating with an extra place for that only. Something similar could have bene for the Cross Country either one extra for the team only or 4 places but a maximum of 3 in each individual event. Look forward ot any comments/corrections.

[Rafa Maciel 1,706]

3 hours ago, Jwacoles said:

The BOA only want medal headlines and has never understood relocated places.

Whilst I don't disagree with the sentiment - that GB don't always accept reallocated quotas - I don't believe that is down to the BOA. They don't select the team. They simply confirm the athletes who are nominated by the national federations.

 

Likewise, I wouldn't say the BOA only want the medal headlines but there is no getting away from the fact that UK Sport - the organisation that controls the funding for elite sport - tends to measure success in terms of a return on investment