Yorkshire contingent are hoping to point GB downhill towards glory

Names like Torvill and Dean, Rhona Martin and Amy Williams are remembered in British sporting history because they achieved something all too rare for this country – they won a Winter Olympic medal.

Torvill and Dean’s enchanting ice dance to the Bolero in 1984, Martin sweeping her curling team to gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Williams sliding down an ice shoot faster than anyone in Whistler four years ago, are isolated incidents.

So isolated, in fact, that in the three Winter Olympics this century, Great Britain has won just four medals.

Yet last week, as the 22nd Winter Games in Sochi drew ever closer, UK Sport – which has put £14m into the winter programme – set Team GB the target of three to seven medals to be won in the Russian Black Sea resort next month.

It may not be that many for a sporting superpower that finished third in the medals table at the last Summer Olympics, but given this country lacks an abundance of the two things that are pre-requisites for winter sports – snow and ice – it seems a stretch.

Throw in the fact that Britain have not won three medals at a Winter Games since 1936, and it further highlights the enormous task at hand in defying history and placating the paymasters.

However, there is good cause for this inflated expectation, and a lot of optimism that it can be met.

British winter sports are booming like never before and the team head to Russia flush with medal prospects.

Lizzy Yarnold has won four of seven World Cup skeleton meets this season, while the defending world champion is Sheffield-based Shelley Rudman, who was Britain’s only medallist in Turin eight years ago and is back for a third stab at gold in Sochi.

Dorset’s Andrew Musgrave stunned the biathlon world last week when he won the Norwegian national sprint title in Lillehammer, while Elise Christie is a short track speed skater who won bronze at last year’s world championships.

As well as that quartet, Team GB also boast a wealth of medal potential in the new Olympic sport of slopestyle, which comes under the freestyle arm of skiing disciplines.

And many of them were forged here in Yorkshire.

James Woods, 22, pictured, of Sheffield is a regular winner of World Cup events and a frequent medallist in the X Games, where the sport of slopestyle traditionally resides.

This on-the-edge collection of twists, turns and jumps is also where another Sheffielder, Katie Summerhayes, is a medal prospect. The 18-year-old displayed her form by winning a silver medal at the latest World Cup meet in Gstaad at the weekend.

Together with Halifax’s Tyler Harding, Bradford’s Jamie Nichols, Brighouse’s Katie Ormerod, Settle’s Emma Lonsdale and Sheffield’s James Machon they hope to be named tomorrow in the Team GB Olympic squad.

Bringing them all together is Pat Sharples, a 36-year-old from Bradford who has served as the driving force behind freestyle skiing in this country since his own career was ended by a knee injury 16 years ago.

As proud as he is to lead his squad to Sochi, developing a programme that lasts beyond the next Games is of greater concern.

“Because of the results we have had in slopestyle and freestyle skiing disciplines in particular, the expectation has risen, and it looks good on paper,” said Sharples.

“James Woods, Katie Summerhayes and snowboarder Billy Morgan have all won medals at World Cup.

“The extra support from UK Sport has definitely helped us.

“Everyone has benefited from it, but we have also used the money to help develop up-and-coming athletes, some of whom are ahead of schedule.

“The target set by UK Sport is definitely possible, but at the moment I don’t think anyone’s getting carried away by it.

“There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us.

“These are sports that are so tough to predict. Ten people in each event have the potential to win a medal.

“And I don’t want to place any more pressure on my guys.”

Leeds-based Zoe Gillings heads into her third Olympics in the sport of snowboard cross, a breakneck race of six athletes down a narrow course that is as unpredictable as it is exciting.

Gillings, 28, has two top-10 finishes from three World Cup meets this season and is an outside bet for a medal in Sochi.

As the country’s only representative in the sport there is not as much pressure on her to deliver, but she does accept that as a collective, Team GB are better prepared than ever before.

“We do have a lot of good athletes this year and our chances of doing better are higher this year than at any other time,” she said.

“That’s because the Games have been opened up to halfpipe, slopestyle skiing and snowboarding and, hopefully, we can make UK Sport proud.”