A British gold on the playing cards ultimately! Matt Weston set to interrupt Team GB’s Winter Olympics medal drought as he leads skeleton at midway level after unlawful helmet row
Out of the gloom of Team GB’s performances at these Olympics, Matt Weston has surged into gold medal position at the halfway stage of the skeleton. Unlike a number of his colleagues in the wider delegation, he was able to outrun the pressure on his sled.
That much was demonstrated when he broke the track record with his first competitive slide down the chute in Cortina and then lowered it again to open a 0.30second lead on the field.
A two-time world champion, the 28-year-old was always the man to beat here, but a near-perfect first day has ensured he will awfully difficult to catch, should he take this form into the concluding two rounds on Friday. The German pair of Axel Jungk and Christopher Grotheer, respectively the silver and gold medallists from Beijing 2022, complete the provisional podium.
Marcus Wyatt, with whom Weston shared a British whitewash of the most recent World Cup series, is seventh, 1.12sec behind. Naturally such margins can disappear with one excessively firm brush against an icy wall, but Team GB’s prospects of a breakthrough on the medal table are substantially better than they were at the start of the day.
Weston, who clocked 56.21 on run one and improved to 55.88 on his second go, said: ‘I was quite annoyed after the first run. Corners one, two and three has been an error in training, I tried to be a bit too relaxed because I tried to over-compensate for race-day nerves. I was a bit too soft on the first few corners. It was quite costly. I was pretty glad that I was able to fix it on run two.
‘It’s pretty crazy [to be the overnight leader] but I take every run as run one. I will completely reset myself, switch off for a bit and then re-focus tomorrow.
Matt Weston is course for a gold medal after leading the men’s skeleton at the halfway point
The two-time world champion is set to end Team GB’s medal drought at the Winter Olympics
‘Luckily I have been in this situation at major championships where I have had the overnight lead. I am used to it, I know how to act and hopefully tomorrow should be fun.
‘I have taught myself to love the pressure and love the expectation I have on my shoulders. I didn’t like it when I first had success, but now I have turned it into fire that I can go out and give my best.’
The day had commenced with the drama of Vladyslav Heraskevych’s expulsion, owing to the Ukrainian’s helmet protest against the Russian invasion.
For Weston and Wyatt, the subject of helmets has been less emotive but relevant nonetheless after their new design was deemed non-compliant last week.
Using the version with which they dominated the 2025-26 World Cup season – five wins from seven for Weston and the other two claimed by Wyatt – there appeared to be little performance impact from the setback.
That being said, Wyatt has work to do to make the podium.
‘It was OK,’ said Wyatt. ‘I had a few mistakes on both runs and I did an OK job. I am still in the mix. Hopefully a classic comeback tomorrow and let’s see if we can pick up a few people.
‘You want it to be super close in the racing. The potential is there and that is what is keeping me going.
Weston’s Team GB team-mate Marcus Wyatt (above) is seventh, 1.12 seconds behind
‘There’s a couple of corners I have found tricky in training, corner two and nine. This track is quite quirky and small mistakes costs time, that is what happened to me.’
For all the near-misses of Team GB on other fields of play here, it does appear that £5.7million skeleton programme is doing most of the heavy lifting – when the women’s event starts of Friday afternoon, Tabitha Stoecker will be among the favourites having finished in the top two of all six training runs.
