Team GB is being tipped for its best ever winter medal haul as UK Sport predicts up to eight medals – with ice skaters Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear set to be ‘the new Torvill and Dean’
The Winter Olympics officially opens with a spectacular ceremony at Milan’s world-famous San Siro Stadium on Friday. Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli will take centre stage before millions tune in to see a British team full of exciting young talent. UK Sport predicts up to eight medals could be won in Italy.
Spread across northern Italy, the 25th winter games will be marked with ceremonies and parades in Predazzo, Livigno and Cortina d’Ampezzo. Team GB is being tipped for its best ever medal haul. Our record is five, at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018. Ice skating pair Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear are ‘the new Torvill and Dean’ after they finished third in the world championships last year; they could bring home our first Olympic figure skating medal since 1994. Lilah, 26, is flagbearer for the opening ceremony with bobsleigh pilot Brad Hall, 35.
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She said: “When I heard the news, I started crying immediately, I was just flooded with so much emotion, honour, and pride. It was an out-of-body experience to be asked, and I am just so incredibly excited and honoured”
Britain’s curlers look set to add to their two medals from 2022, when the women brought home gold. We also boast two of the best skeleton athletes in world champion Matt Weston and his team mate and close friend Marcus Wyatt.
Other leading medal contenders include Mia Brookes, Kirsty Muir – our youngest athlete at the Beijing 2022 Games at just 17 – Zoe Atkin and Charlotte Bankes. All are in with a chance of the nation’s first Olympic gold or silver medal on snow.
The competition, which runs until Feb 22 with coverage on the BBC, will feature almost 3,000 athletes from 90 countries competing for 116 medals at Milan-Cortina. Team GB has 53 athletes, with qualifying action already underway. Wyatt is a hot favourite to join Weston on the men’s skeleton podium, having won World Championship silver behind his team-mate last year.
Weston and Tabby Stoecker will team up in the mixed team event. Also on the Cortina track, Brad Hall’s two-man and four-man sleds compete in the men’s bobsleigh. There could be a hat-trick of medals for Team GB’s curlers, with Mouat, competing in rainbow shoe laces in 2022, and Jennifer Dodds teaming up in the mixed team event. Team Morrison is looking to defend the gold medal won by Muirhead’s women’s team in Beijing four years ago.
The Brits to watch
Matt Weston: Skeleton
Weston is a two-time world champion and won three successive overall World Cup titles between 2023 and 2026. He won five of seven World Cup gold medals this season, picking up silver behind team-mate Wyatt in the other two.
Days to watch: Feb 12 (men’s heats one and two), Feb 13 (men’s heats three and four), Feb 15 (mixed team). Zoe Atkin: Freestyle skiing (halfpipe)
The current halfpipe world champion, Atkin has achieved three podium finishes from three starts on the World Cup circuit this season, including a gold. She also won gold at the recent X Games.
Days to watch: Feb 19 (qualifying), Feb 21 (finals).Charlotte Bankes: Snowboarding (snowboard cross)
Bankes was crowned world champion in 2021.
She won the mixed team title two years later with British team-mate Huw Nightingale. Bankes has twice won the Crystal Globe, the overall World Cup title, and finished second in the standings in 2024 and 2025, but was hit by a broken collarbone last year.Days to watch: Feb 13 (women’s), Feb 15 (mixed team).Mia Brookes: Snowboarding (big air, slopestyle)
In 2023 Brookes became the youngest world champion in snowboarding history at the age of 16 with slopestyle gold.
She has won back-to-back big air Crystal Globes and won World Cup gold in December. She also won slopestyle gold and big air bronze at the recent X Games.
Dates to watch: Feb 8 (big air qualifying), Feb 9 (big air finals), Feb 16 (slopestyle qualifying), Feb 17 (slopestyle finals).Kirsty Muir: Freestyle skiing (big air, slopestyle)
Muir is a two-time World Cup gold medallist, having won slopestyle gold in Tignes last season and the big air title in Secret Garden, China, in November. In Aspen she won slopestyle X Games gold and big air silver.
Dates to watch: Feb 7 (slopestyle qualifying), Feb 9 (slopestyle finals), Feb 14 (big air qualifying), Feb 16 (big air finals).Lilah Fear & Lewis Gibson: Figure skating (ice dance)
In March Fear and Gibson became the first British figure skaters to win a World Championship medal since Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984 with their bronze in Boston.
Fear and Gibson have also won four European medals and are two-time Grand Prix Final bronze medallists.
Dates to watch: Feb 9 (rhythm dance), Feb 11 (free dance).Team Mouat: Curling
Bruce Mouat’s men’s rink are the 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.
In 2022, Eve Muirhead’s women’s team brought home gold, and she is now the chef de mission for Team GB in Italy.
