Team GB make British historical past at Winter Olympics with two gold medals in a day

Team GB made history at the Winter Olympics after winning two gold medals on the same day for the first time, with Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker triumphing in the skeleton mixed team event

Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker clinched victory in the debut Winter Olympics skeleton mixed team event after setting a track record time of 1:59.36 and winning by a mere 0.17 seconds.

The triumph makes Weston a double-Olympic champion following his men’s skeleton win on Friday night. Stoecker bags a gold medal in her first-ever Games.

Their victory was the cherry on top of a Super Sunday for Team GB, which also saw Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale secure Britain’s first snow-based gold, in the snowboard cross mixed team final. It is a historic moment for Team GB, having never won multiple gold medals at any previous Winter Olympics, let alone two in one day.

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In a pre-ceremony chat with the BBC, an ecstatic Stoecker said: “Thanks [Matt]. I can’t believe it. No, like it’s a team effort, right?

“When Matt came down, and we were in the green… I think I’m in shock!” Weston chimed in: “Luckily, I felt like I kind of knew what I needed to do.

“Yesterday – not yesterday, the day before, it’s all a bit of a whirlwind – when I had the individual event, I kind of took a load of confidence from that, and I just had to almost in my head be boring and get the job done. We’ve done it again!”.

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Stoecker set the stage for Weston, leaving him with a 0.30-second deficit to make up against Germany’s Axel Jungk and Susanne Kehrer, which he managed to overcome by 0.17 seconds. The other German duo, Christopher Grotheer and Jacqueline Pfeifer, secured the bronze, trailing their teammates by a hair-raising 0.01 seconds.

Stoecker and Weston emerged as the top British performers, with Stoecker finishing fifth in the women’s event. Freya Tarbit and Marcus Wyatt, who finished seventh and ninth in their respective individual events, also competed in the mixed event but were nudged down to fourth place by Stoecker and Weston’s performance.

Former Team GB bobsleigh pilot John Jackson was effusive in his praise for Weston during the BBC’s coverage. He said: “That was absolutely immaculate! He [Weston] has been the cream of the crop of anybody on this track.

“This is history; this is the first time GB have won three gold medals at a winter games. He [Weston] just keeps raising the bar to new standards, and that was absolutely nail-biting stuff when Tabby didn’t quite give the run she wanted to give him a chance.

“Matt Weston absolutely destroyed the field, and a lot of that was done in the first 50 meters. He is the first Brit to win two gold medals [at the Winter Olympics]; what an amazing achievement.”

Team GB now sits 12th in the medal table, boasting the same number of golds as Australia and Japan. They are ahead of 13 other countries in terms of medal count: Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechia, Finland, Latvia, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Poland, Slovenia and South Korea.