Sky Sports News’ Geraint Hughes assesses the good, the troubling and the weird from the latest edition of the Winter Olympics…
GB report card
Team GB won five medals in the match against Milan-Cortina, a record haul that equals the five medals won at the 2014 Sochi and 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
However, there is one very big difference in Team GB and that is the gold column. They leave with three Olympic champions, something that has never happened before and probably beyond any hopes or expectations.
In Olympic terms, a gold medal trumps anything else. As far as the medal table is concerned, it’s all about the gold, and Team GB won three.
Many of the British athletes finished in an abysmal 4th place. All three athletes finished fourth in four different events, narrowly missing out on medals of any color.
This has never happened to Winter Olympics Team GB before. It will be a blow to these athletes, but it means Team GB are among the world’s elite. This is the first time the team has finished in the top 10 at the Olympics 20 times.
Many would have been secretly hoping for more than five medals, but the numerous fourth places and top-10 finishes will be seen as a success.
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Team GB’s Bruce Muat and Hammy McMillan reflect on their silver medal win in men’s curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Is it worth the money?
For example, the GB Curling program received around £6 million in funding during the last Olympic Games, the majority of which was provided by taxpayers and National Lottery participants.
If you love, enjoy and are proud of British sporting successes, including the great performance of the British team at the Winter Olympics, then there is no doubt that your emotions were high when the British men’s curlers won the silver medal. The curlers didn’t just show up in Italy, but in the process they became world champions, winning almost every tournament except the Olympics and winning two consecutive silver medals.
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Charlotte Banks and Hugh Nightingale celebrated Team GB’s first Olympic Winter Olympics title on snow as they celebrated the snowboard cross mixed team’s gold medal.
What I’m saying here is that if British athletes and women athletes want to be part of the elite and always be among the best in the world, that requires a large infrastructure and a significant number of people, and that means a lot of money.
Some would say there’s too much money, and there’s not a single ice slide track in the UK, so why be good at skeletons? In the times we live in, where the cost of living has become devastating for many people, the idea of public funding being poured into elite sport certainly raises eyebrows.
Everyone has an opinion, but all I can share is that if the British public wants to see British sport succeed, as we see the British high-performance system go from one extreme to the other, it won’t be free, it will cost money. Is the money received in various sports well spent? Well, that’s actually one of our government’s jobs, and it’s their job to ensure cost-effectiveness and accountability in high-performance sport.
weston shines
Winning one gold medal is pretty sensational, and winning it twice in one competition puts you in a pretty elite group. Not only are Matt Weston’s two gold medals outstanding, but the way he earned them is also noteworthy.
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Matt Weston reflects on winning gold medals in men’s and mixed team skeleton at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
He was completely dominant. Although his individual gold medals were notable for the sheer distance they were won, perhaps his greatest accomplishment in these games was in the mixed team event. The last run was the last run of all the competitors, and they had to make up a 0.30 second difference, which is very fast, so from a skeleton perspective, it’s a pretty big time difference that they had to make up.
People with far more knowledge about the skeleton told me he closed the gap between 150 and 200 meters. His start was very good, his maneuvering was smooth, and of course so was how quickly he slid down the ice.
sports and politics
A story that didn’t have a happy ending involved the IOC and Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladislav Heraskevich.
By all accounts, Heraskevich was in the running for a skeleton medal, probably not a gold medal, but he is very good at his sport. But he wanted to wear a helmet with 24 photos of his friends and teammates, all of whom were killed during the Russian-Russian war.
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Sky Sports News’ Geraint Hughes explains why Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladislav Heraskevich will skip the Winter Olympics following the decision to pay a helmet tribute.
The IOC has a charter in which athletes are not allowed to make political, controversial or inflammatory statements on the stadium or during the moment of competition.
Oddly enough, this is a rule voted by the athletes themselves to protect precious moments of sporting greatness and enjoy them for what they are.
Heraskevich was deemed to have made political statements during the competition, and it was determined that his actions could undermine the sporting glory of other athletes if they were wearing helmets.
Heraskevich said the helmet was an “act or commemoration” rather than a “political statement.”
Very emotional and it is very easy to at least sympathize with Heraskevich. “Let him wear it,” I heard a quiet voice say over and over again. The IOC has these rules that were voted by athletes, for athletes. It was a strange and rather uncomfortable moment in these competitions.
strange expansion
Were ski jumpers enlarging their penises and genitals with hyaluronic acid to aid performance? You read that correctly…
Claims, which appear to be largely unsubstantiated, have been made that ski jumpers enlarge their lower bodies in order to wear larger ski jumpsuits. The larger the suit, the larger the crotch area. When an athlete is in the air, the larger the area, the greater the lift and drag forces, allowing the jumper to stay in the air longer and “jump” farther.
Currently, international ski jumping rules require all jumpers to undergo a 3D scan at the start of the season, which determines the suit size they are allowed to wear, with two suits to be worn each season.
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The World Anti-Doping Agency has said it will investigate claims that top ski jumpers manipulate the size of their groin areas to improve aerodynamics.
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) called the allegations “outrageous rumors.”
They categorically assert that “there is no evidence, or even any indication, that competitors have used hyaluronic acid injections to gain a competitive advantage.”
At present, hyaluronic acid is not a banned substance by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), but the sport’s governing body says no ski jumpers have used such products anyway.
Play stops due to snow
Yes, it was. I was witnessing it and uttered the words “the snow stopped playing” without fully realizing how ridiculous that actually was.
However, there may be too much snow for the Winter Olympic snow sports events. The weather in Livigno, one of Italy’s highest resorts, was poor during the second week of games, with heavy snow already falling one night and the next day, but a blizzard dumped more than 10 inches of snow on the area, forcing all events to be postponed for the day and forcing organizers to hastily reschedule events for the next day.
The clean-up was spectacular, keeping the roads and paths clear and creating a safe area for players and spectators alike, but keeping the area open is impossible in extreme snowstorm conditions.
So snow had the final say for a few days during the Olympics… and, for a brief moment, the games were called off.
