The world’s finest winter athletes are converging on northern Italy as the 2026 Winter Olympics officially kick off in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. For Team GB, anticipation is sky-high: after a turbulent Beijing 2022, the British skeleton squad arrives in Italy with a fresh sense of purpose, a star-studded coaching staff, and a track record that suggests they could make history. But how did they get here, and what makes this year’s campaign so tantalizing for British fans?
Matt Weston, now 28, is at the heart of Britain’s skeleton resurgence. Four years ago, at his Olympic debut in Beijing, Weston was tipped as a medal contender following his first Skeleton World Cup gold. Yet, things unraveled in spectacular fashion. Not only did the British team’s gamble on new sled technology backfire—leaving them off the podium for the first time since 2002—but Weston’s 15th-place finish was the best among the four British sliders. “In this sport the fine margins are everything and you have to take risks to be the best, but sometimes that will come back to bite you and it came back to bite us at the biggest event of my career,” Weston told BBC Sport. The disappointment was palpable, and for Weston, the Olympic dream felt tarnished.
Yet, adversity often breeds innovation. In the months following Beijing, Great Britain’s skeleton program underwent a radical transformation. The most eye-catching move? Recruiting Martins Dukurs, widely regarded as the greatest slider in history, as the new head coach. Dukurs, a six-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist for Latvia, retired after Beijing and brought with him not only his own coach, Matthias Guggenberger, but a treasure trove of expertise. “Martins is the best ever at what he’s done. His experience is invaluable,” said Weston. Teammate Marcus Wyatt echoed the sentiment: “[Dukurs] is almost bigger than skeleton. He’s the GOAT. He’s won more World Cups than some people have taken part in, he’s really special and just to have him happy enough to coach us, it gives you so much more confidence in yourself.”
Dukurs himself was drawn to the British challenge by the squad’s untapped potential. “We needed fast results because we saw the athletes had lost a bit of confidence, and in professional sport confidence it is really important,” Dukurs told BBC Radio 5 Live. His arrival marked a turning point, injecting belief and technical know-how into a program that was reeling from both disappointment and a significant funding cut. UK Sport support dropped from £6.5 million for the 2022 cycle to an initial £4.8 million for 2026, before later rising to £5.8 million. Despite the financial squeeze, the team’s ambitions remained undimmed.
It’s worth noting the scale of Britain’s skeleton success. Since the sport’s reintroduction to the Olympic program in 2002, no nation has captured more medals than Great Britain’s nine. This, despite the fact that the country lacks its own ice track—British skeleton and bobsleigh athletes train on a push track at the University of Bath, a far cry from the facilities enjoyed by their rivals. “This is what they’ve achieved without a track, it’s actually amazing,” said Dukurs. “Any time I needed I was jumping on a sled, I was testing equipment, and unfortunately they don’t have such opportunity.”
So how do they do it? The answer, according to the athletes, lies in teamwork and knowledge-sharing. “We only get to slide down an ice track about 120-150 times a year. Each run is less than a minute, so you’re looking at less than two hours actually doing the sport every year,” said Wyatt. “But if you talk to other athletes, learn from their experiences and share what you’re doing, suddenly you’ve doubled, tripled, quadrupled your knowledge.” Weston added, “On the track, [Wyatt’s] the first person I want to beat, I’m the first person he wants to beat. But when we’re training, when we’re working stuff out, we work together so well, and I think that’s what separates us apart [from the rest].”
The results speak for themselves. Weston is now a two-time world champion and multiple World Cup gold medallist, with three Crystal Globes—awarded for overall World Cup titles—to his name. Wyatt has notched up four individual World Cup wins, and this season both he and Tabitha Stoecker claimed overall bronze medals. Together, Weston and Stoecker have also secured two World Championship silvers in the mixed team event, which debuts at the Olympics in Cortina. Most impressively, Weston and Wyatt won every men’s World Cup this season—a feat no other nation has achieved before the Games.
Of course, the build-up hasn’t been without drama. The British skeleton squad’s hopes of using new helmets were dashed after they lost an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport just before the Games. Nevertheless, both Weston and Stoecker topped multiple training runs, undeterred by the setback. “Teamwork makes the dream work,” seems more than a cliché for this tightly-knit squad.
The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially opening on February 6 at Milan’s legendary San Siro stadium, promise to be one for the ages. The Games are the first to be co-hosted by multiple cities, with Milan staging figure skating, ice hockey, and speed skating, while Cortina d’Ampezzo—nestled in the heart of the Alps—hosts the sliding sports, alpine skiing, and curling. Additional events unfold across Valtellina, Val di Fiemme, and Verona, with the closing ceremony set for February 22 at the Verona Arena.
For fans back home, coverage is extensive: TNT Sport and Discovery+ are broadcasting over 850 hours of live action, with TNT Sports 2 as the main destination. The BBC provides free-to-air coverage of all major events on BBC One and Two, plus additional streams via iPlayer and the BBC Sport website. With action running daily from February 4 through February 22, British viewers won’t miss a moment.
Team GB’s medal hopes extend beyond skeleton, with promising snowboarders and the ice dance pair Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson tipped for success. After only two medals in Beijing—one gold and one silver, both in curling—UK Sport has set an ambitious target of up to eight medals in Milan-Cortina, aiming to surpass the five-medal hauls from Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018.
As the skeleton action gets underway on Thursday, February 6, all eyes are on Matt Weston and his teammates. “My sights are set on gold. That’s the only colour I want to come home with,” Weston declared. “It sounds funny saying this as a two-time world champion, but I don’t really feel like I’ve been able to put down what I really feel like I can. There’s more in there.”
With a revitalized squad, a legendary coach, and a history of overcoming obstacles, Team GB’s skeleton stars are poised to chase glory once more. The stage is set, the ice is fast, and the world is watching—could this be the year that British skeleton writes its greatest chapter yet?