Britain’s wait for a first Winter Olympics looks set to drag on after Laura Deas and Brogan Crowley finished well down the pecking order at the halfway point of the women’s skeleton.
A British female has won a medal in the event at every Games since the discipline’s introduction to the Olympics in 2022.
But Deas, a bronze medallist behind teammate Lizzy Yarnold in PyeongChang four years ago, currently lies 21st place and a massive 1.8seconds off the lead following two runs. Teammate Cowley, on her Olympic debut, is a place lower and nearly half a second slower.
A bemused Deas said: “I can’t tell you now why the speed wasn’t there. It’s certainly not the outcome I wanted.”
The British duo return for heats three and four on Saturday in a competition which Australian Jaclyn Narracott leads at the halfway point.
There was a double defeat for Britain’s two curling teams in their early matches with Eve Muirhead facing an uphill struggle to make it out of the group stage following a second loss in three matches.
A British quartet including Jen Dodds, Vicky Wright and Hailey Duff had been kept in the contest courtesy of two big errors from South Korean skip Kim Eun-jung but the Koreans came good with a four at the penultimate end for a 9-7 win over the British.
Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan were on the receiving end of the same scoreline against defending Olympic champions the United States.
Mouat and his team had been 5-2 down but fought their way back into the match before being undone by a strong penultimate end by their American rivals. He later guided his team to a comfortable 8-3 victory over Norway.
In the men’s snowboard halfpipe, there was to be no golden finish to Shaun White’s illustrious career.
The 35-year-old had been bidding for a fourth Olympic title but crashed on the final run of his career and had to make do with fourth place as Japan’s Ayumu Hirano took the gold after of Australian Scotty James in second and Jan Scherrer, of Switzerland, in third.
“This is it for me,” said White afterwards. “Snowboarding, thank you. It’s been the love of my life. I’m so thankful to be here and so proud of Ayumu and Scotty and Jan, incredible riders. It’s been a journey. I can’t wait to see where this sport goes.”
Mikaela Shiffrin bounced back from crashing out of the slalom and giant slalom to complete her run in the Super-G in which she finished ninth. The gold went to Lara Gut-Behrami, the silver to Mirjam Puchner and the bronze to Michelle Gisin.
Ester Ledecka had been looking to add a medal to her parallel giant slalom snowboard gold from earlier in the week but could only finish fifth.
Winter Olympics medal table
Country |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Total |
|
1 |
Germany |
6 |
3 |
0 |
9 |
2 |
Norway |
5 |
3 |
4 |
12 |
3 |
Austria |
4 |
6 |
4 |
14 |
4 |
USA |
4 |
5 |
1 |
10 |
5 |
Netherlands |
4 |
3 |
1 |
8 |
6 |
Sweden |
4 |
2 |
2 |
7 |
7 |
China |
3 |
3 |
0 |
6 |
8 |
Italy |
2 |
4 |
2 |
8 |
9 |
ROC |
2 |
3 |
6 |
11 |
10 |
Japan |
2 |
2 |
4 |
8 |
- |
Great Britain |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
