Team GB chief predicts ‘most potent’ Winter Games ever with sights set on eight medals

Snowboarder Mia Brookes is one of Britain’s big hopes for success in Milano Cortina after winning a gold medal at the X Games only last month. Photograph: Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics. Which makes the prediction of Eve Muirhead, Britain’s chef de mission at the Milano Cortina Games, rather extraordinary.

“I believe that we are taking one of the most potent teams of athletes that we have taken to a Winter Olympic Games,” she says. “We have the capability to disrupt the norm.”