For a small island with only a few mountain ranges or months of snow, Nice Britain has nonetheless managed to get pleasure from some success on the Winter Olympics.
In 23 Video games, Staff GB has gained simply 32 medals in complete however, whereas that tally will not be as spectacular as different nations, the victories – and even the defeats – have been accompanied by some very memorable moments.
The Eighties supplied Britain with the bespectacled icon that’s Eddie the Eagle and Torvill and Dean’s well-known Bolero.
Staff GB have supplied the nation with some memorable moments on the Winter Olympics, together with Lizzy Yarnold’s (pictured) two gold medals
And 2002 noticed the phenomenon of the curling craze sweep the nation as 5 girls swept their approach to gold.
Whereas Aimee Fuller’s commentary made much more memorable her team-mate Jenny Jones’s win to offer Britain with its first ever Olympic medal in snowboarding.
As Britain’s athletes put together to hit the slopes, rinks and programs at Beijing 2022, Sportsmail takes a take a look at Staff GB’s Winter Olympics highlights.
TORVILL AND DEAN, 1984
No Brit can hear the rippling opening notes of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ with out picturing Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean knelt on the ice.
An unbelievable 24 million folks within the UK alone tuned in to look at the pair skate their approach to Olympic Gold in in Sarajevo in 1984.
Not solely that, however additionally they grew to become the highest-scoring determine skaters of all time for a single programme, receiving 12 good 6.0s and 6 5.9s, which included creative impression scores of 6.0 from each decide.
After profitable gold, they turned skilled, which means they had been not eligible to compete at Olympic degree.
They made an beginner comeback a decade later to compete on the 1994 Video games in Lillehammer, the place they took a bronze medal residence.
However the flouncy purple costumes and iconic hairstyles of 1984 will eternally be ingrained on the British nationwide psyche.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s Gold medal-winning routine to Ravel’s Bolero will eternally be remembered by the British public, 24million of whom tuned in to look at the efficiency
EDDIE THE EAGLE
Though not one in all Staff GB’s best success tales, Eddie the Eagle is actually one of the vital entertaining.
Born Michael Edwards, Eddie the Eagle grew up in in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, a spot not typically synonymous with ski leaping.
However that didn’t deter Eddie, who compelled his approach into the general public consciousness by qualifying for the 1988 Calgary Video games.
He in the end completed final in each the 70 and 90 metre occasions however his sheer will and dedication have made him an 80s icon.
The bespectacled Brit has change into so beloved that his story was even made into a movie, starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton.
Bespectacled Eighties icon Eddie the Eagle by some means certified for the 1988 Calgary Video games
FIRST EVER GOLD, 1924
4 Scottish curlers wrote their names into British Olympic historical past in Chamonix in late January 1924.
However it might take 82 years for Willie Jackson and son Laurence, Robin Welsh and Tom Murray to be hailed as Britain’s first Winter Olympic champions.
They cruised to victory in a curling competitors that includes simply three groups, beating Sweden 38-7, earlier than an much more emphatic 46-4 victory over hosts France.
However the Chamonix Video games had been solely retroactively designated the primary Winter Olympics in 1925.
It took till 2006 that the Scots had been formally recognised as Olympic champions and due to this fact Britain’s first ever.
Willie Jackson and son Laurence, Robin Welsh and Tom Murray gained Nice Britain’s first gold on the Winter Video games in Chamonix in 1924
JOHN CURRY, 1976
Torvill and Dean will be the ones starring on Dancing on Ice, however Nice Britain already had a skating hero earlier than them.
John Curry gained the nation’s first Olympic gold in males’s determine skating on the 1976 Innsbruck Video games.
Earlier than the boy from Birmingham snatched the gold, Britain’s highest place within the males’s determine skating had been fourth.
Curry’s profitable efficiency additionally ended Staff GB’s medal drought on the Winter Olympics as he gained the first medal for 12 years.
Total the 9 judges gave Curry 105.9 factors out a potential 108 factors, which was the very best level complete within the historical past of males’s determine skating.
Determine skater John Curry gained Olympic Gold on the 1976 Winter Video games in Innsbruck
ROBIN COUSINS, 1980
4 years after John Curry’s legendary win, Robin Cousins penned his personal title into British determine skating folklore.
Cousins gained gold in determine skating on the 1980 Olympic Winter Video games in Lake Placid to maintain the boys’s title in Britain for a second successive Video games – and he did it in dramatic vogue.
In one of the vital thrilling Olympic males’s determine skating competitions of all time, Cousins clinched victory.
In a tense remaining, he sat behind Germany’s Jan Hoffman, however a memorable lengthy program with significantly excessive scoring creative parts noticed him clinch eventual victory.
In 1980, Robin Cousins saved the boys’s determine skating title in Britain for successive Video games
AMY WILLIAMS, 2010
Amy Williams didn’t earn her gold medal on the ice rink, like all of her poredecessors going approach again to 1964.
As an alternative she gained it on the frozen observe performing within the hitherto little-known sport of skeleton – basically hurtling head first down an ice slide at 90mph on a tiny bobsled with little or no safety. It sounds loopy, it sounds very harmful, and it’s each of these, after which some.
Williams had unsuccessfully tried to make the Summer season Video games as a 400 metre runner however a change to skeleton extremely struck gold.
Her tenacity was rewarded in 2010 as she broke the course file at Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics twice on her approach to a gold medal.
Amy Williams broke the course file twice on her approach to skeleton gold in Vancouver
LIZZY YARNOLD, 2014 AND 2018
Staff GB’s golden age of skeleton continued with Britain’s most profitable Winter Olympian of all time.
Equally to Williams, Lizzy Yarnold tried to make it in athletics however, after collaborating in a scheme in search of gifted athletes who might have an effect in sports activities they hadn’t beforehand thought-about, she found skeleton.
Two years later, she gained her first official race and the remainder is historical past.
She gained her first gold in Sochi in 2014 earlier than efficiently defending her title at PyeongChang 2018.
Yarnold efficiently defended her Gold medal in PyeongChang to change into Britain’s most profitable Winter Olympian of all time
JENNY JONES, 2014
The British Isles might not boast the Alps of France, Switzerland, Austria or Italy however that has not impeded the current success of British snowboarders within the final two editions of the Video games.
And Jenny Jones was the one to kickstart Britain’s snowboarding success.
Jones grew to become the primary Briton to win an Olympic medal in snowboarding by securing a bronze at Sochi 2014.
She set Britain alight with slopestyle fever together with her remaining run however the second was added to by team-mate Aimee Fuller’s commentary.
Fuller was heard cheering when the ultimate competitor, Austria’s Anna Gasser, fell, which means that Jones would clinch the bronze medal, which led to 300 complaints to the BBC.
Jenny Jones (pictured) grew to become the primary Brit to win an Olympic medal in snowboarding in 2014
Her team-mate Aimee Fuller (centre) joined the commentary field for Jones’s profitable run
CURLING CRAZE, 2012
If somebody had advised you that 5.7 million folks could be on the sting of their seats watching 5 girls sweep brushes throughout ice, you’d have thought them mad. However in 2002 the curling craze was sweeping the nation.
Nice Britain’s girls curlers secured the nation’s first Winter Olympics gold medal for 18 years with victory in an extremely tense remaining in Salt Lake Metropolis.
The British workforce, led by skipper Rhona Martin, clinched the title and a spot in historical past with the final stone of the ultimate finish.
Martin, backed by Fiona MacDonald, Margaret Morton, Janice Rankin and Debbie Knox, are the primary British Winter Video games gold medallists since Torvill and Dean again in 1984.
Nice Britain’s girls curlers (left-right: Margaret Morton, Janice Rankin, Fiona MacDonald, Debbie Knox and Rhona Martin) gained gold in 2002 to spark a curling craze
EVE MUIRHEAD
The curling craze swept the nation as soon as once more as one girl grew to become synonymous with the game.
Eve Muirhead has been to a few Olympic Video games and has been via a rollercoaster of feelings.
2010 was a irritating expertise for Muirhead as Staff GB completed seventh however she returned with a memorable bronze medal-winning efficiency in 2014.
In guiding Britain to Bronze in Sochi, Muirhead grew to become the youngest ever skip to win a Winter Olympic medal.
It was heartbreak in 2018 when the workforce agonisingly misplaced out on the bronze medal to Japan.
However she’s going to pen the newest chapter in a glittering Video games profession as she leads a rink of debutants to Beijing 2022.
Eve Muirhead skipped Staff GB to Bronze in Sochi in 2014 earlier than agonisingly lacking out to Japan in 2018
