By Mitch Phillips
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 10 (Reuters) - It still demands something of a double-take to read that Britain, a country without a single sliding track, is the second-most successful skeleton nation in Olympic history, and that medal haul looks set to be increased in Cortina this week.
Having bagged three golds in the women's singles through Amy Williams in 2010 and Lizzy Yarnold (2014 and 2018), this time it is the men leading the way in the high-octane, head-first sport.
Matt Weston
is one of the hottest favourites of the entire Games, arriving as a double world champion having just secured a third successive World Cup title.
He won five of this season's races and the two he did not win - when he finished second - went to fellow Briton Marcus Wyatt, who finished third in the World Cup standings.
On the women's side, Tabitha Stoecker took third in the World Cup and teamed up with Wyatt to top the mixed team World Cup in a timely success ahead of the event making its Olympic debut this year.
Over the World Cup season Britons took an impressive nine golds in a haul of 16 medals, with Germany and Belgium next-best on three.
"I think the boys need to even the score a little bit," said Wyatt. I got into the sport off the success of Amy, Lizzy and Laura (Deas) and it's always been 'the girls, the girls' so there's a little part of you that thinks, 'now it's our time'.
"The progress the team and I have made over the last four years is crazy and while there is definitely some pressure, we see pressure as a privilege."
Despite the remarkable consistency of the British duo, the margins on the day can be tiny. In the final World Cup singles race in Altenberg, Germany last month, Weston and German duo Christopher Groetheer and Axel Jungk (gold and silver medallists at the 2022 Olympics) took a three-way share for second place behind Wyatt with times identical to the 100th of a second.
Weston has looked impressive with three fastest runs in four attempts this week on the track where he won the test event last November.
"The track is in amazing condition. We're already flying past the official track record," Weston said on Monday. "It should be a really exciting race and quite close, actually."
HOME HOPES
Weston's local knowledge pales alongside Italian pair Amedeo Bagnis and Mattia Gaspari, who was born in Cortina d'Ampezzo and can see the sliding track from his balcony.
Bagnis has looked sharp and has a real chance of claiming a second-ever skeleton medal for Italy after Nino Bibbia's 1948 gold.
Germany took both golds in Beijing - remarkably for a country with such a pedigree in bobsleigh and luge they were their first - but a repeat looks unlikely.
On the women's side Kim Meylemans of Belgium has struggled to reproduce her World Cup-winning form in this week's training as Stoecker, Austria's Janine Flock and Germany's Jacqueline Pfeifer set the pace.
The new mixed team event should add an extra element to the programme, with the second athlete's start time triggered by a light that flashes after the first crosses the finish line.
Germany won the first four editions of the event after it was added to the World Championships in 2020 but U.S. duo of Austin Florian and Mystique Ro took gold on home ice in Lake Placid last year and they will hope to challenge the Germans and Britain again to try to maintain their place as the sport's most successful nation at the Games.
The competition gets underway with the men's heats on February 12, ending with the mixed team race three days later.
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
