‘You should be so proud!’ Prince William pens letter to British bobsleigh team as they win silver medal at World Championships – and jokes he will be ‘watching them from warmer climates’
The Prince of Wales delighted the British bobsleigh team this week when he penned a personal letter congratulating them for their silver medal win.
Pilot Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Greg Cackett and Arran Gulliver won the first four-man bobsleigh medal at the World Championships for 84 years with silver in St Moritz last week.
The team, whose previous four-man medal, also a silver, had come in Cortina in 1939, finished joint-second with Latvia.
In a letter which was posted on Twitter by Team GB, William shared his congratulations, writing: ‘I can only begin to imagine how much training this has involved – often in freezing temperatures – and it’s great to see that your hard work has more than paid off.
‘Rest assured I will continued to keep an eye (albeit from much warmer conditions!) on how you get on in the future.’
The Prince of Wales delighted the British bobsleigh team this week when he penned a personal letter congratulating their silver medal win
In the letter, William wrote: ‘I wanted to write and congratulate you on winning a silver medal at the World Championship in St Moritz.
‘As you know, I have been following your progress since the Winter Olympics in Beijing and I wanted to acknowledge your incredible achievement in bringing back the first four-man bobsleigh medal in 84 years!’
Signing the letter off, William wrote: ‘With best wishes.’
During the contest in Switzerland last week, Britain went into the final run trailing Germany by only eight hundredths of a second.
But Friedrich, who won four-man and two-man gold at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics, set a track record of 1min 4.73sec as Germany took a comfortable gold.
Laura Muir kicked off her season in style by leading a dominant British performance in the 3,000m at the World Indoor Tour in Boston.
European and Commonwealth 1500m champion Muir won in a time of eight minutes 40.34 seconds as British athletes filled the top four positions.
The English trio of Melissa Courtney-Bryant, Katie Snowden and Hannah Nuttall all followed Muir in crossing the line.
Pilot Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Greg Cackett and Arran Gulliver won first four-man bobsleigh medal at the World Championships for 84 years with silver in St Moritz last week
Prince William’s personal letter comes after he surprised a group of schoolchildren with a video call during an engagement earlier this week.
In a video posted on TikTok by 18-year-old Hannah Wickison, Prince William, 40, appears on a pupil’s phone screen while sitting with one of their mothers.
The Prince was on the video call with Kerry Gaskin, a Service Delivery Manager at the East of England Ambulance Service, who had made a batch of royal-themed cupcakes for his visit.
A video of the call shows the children, from Colchester in Essex, laughing with the father-of-three, who was on a surprise informal visit to the hospital and ambulance station.
It was a markedly informal gesture from the future King, who appeared relaxed and even teased one of the pupils about having red hair – comparing him to Ed Sheeran.
The official Team GB account on Twitter shared the news, writing that the snap had been taken by Brad’s mother
In the letter, which was dated last week, the royal congratulated the team for their historic win and said he would be keeping a close eye on the group in the future
The surprise call is just the latest in a series of lighthearted gestures from William which perhaps hint at his desire to make the monarchy more approachable and relatable for the younger generation.
During the call, the Prince says: ‘Who’s the guy, to the corner?’ and points to the pupil as the others laugh and the camera focuses on the bashful boy, who giggles and bows his head.
Amid the giggles, William asks: ‘Are you guys doing any work?’ to which the chorus of pupils replies: ‘No!’
The pupil’s mother chimes in and tells the children: ‘You should be’, before they inform her they’re on their lunchbreak.
William then makes another joke to his eager audience, telling one young boy: ‘Your mother’s feeding me her cakes.’
He then holds up a cupcake to the camera, quipping: ‘They’re not very good!’
The children then burst into laughter as the prince adds: ‘I’ve told her she wouldn’t win Bake Off.’
William then shares a giggle with the pupil’s mother, as she can be heard saying: ‘Right, we’re going to go.’