Team GB’s four-man bobsleigh team missed out on an Olympic podium finish after an underwhelming week at the Cortina Sliding Centre.
The team had been considered outsiders for a medal in a sport dominated by Germany’s multi-million pound programme, but finished seventh, under half a second off the podium.
Germany’s Johannes Lochner collected his second gold of the Games, winning by 0.57 seconds from two-time defending champion and teammate Francesco Friedrich.
The British team - consisting of pilot Brad Hall, Taylor Lawrence, Leon Greenwood and Greg Cackett - has become a major force over the past couple of seasons.
They won two four-man gold medals on the World Cup circuit in Winterberg last January - the first time since 2012 that a German team had been beaten there - before winning bronze at the 2025 world championships.
They finished fourth overall in the 2025-26 World Cup season and had been expected to run the Germans close in Cortina.
But after a strong first run took them into third position they slipped down the rankings with a poor second, and the time gap proved insurmountable over the final two heats on Sunday.
Hall said: “It's pretty brutal. We expected much better from ourselves. We've had a great four years up until this moment, winning World Championship medals, European champions and everything else.
“To finish seventh is quite heart-breaking. It's not a reflection of our ability, it's just the way things have turned out today. That is the way sport goes sometimes.
“Obviously we'd like everyone to tune in a bit more in the years in between to see our successes. Hopefully some of the performances at these Olympic Games will mean that a lot more people tune into winter sports and see that success over the next few years.”
While it was a disappointing week for GB it was joy for Lochner, a two-time Olympic silver medallist behind Friedrich, and his teammates Thorsten Margis, Jorn Wenzel and Georg Fleischhauer, it was a disappointing week for GB.
Friedrich’s latest medal made him the most successful bobsleigh pilot in Olympic history, with four golds and two silvers.
Germany didn’t have it all their own way however as Adam Ammour, the third German pilot, was pipped to bronze on the final run by Michael Vogt’s Switzerland, a further half-second back on Friedrich.
Vogt’s sled finished four-hundredths of a second quicker than Ammour to deny Germany a first-ever clean sweep of the podium in the event.
Britain meanwhile leave Milano-Cortina with no bobsleigh medals, after the two-man team of Hall and Greenwood, a late replacement for Lawrence, finished 12th.
