British Olympic Superstars



Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2009

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British Olympic performances go back to the beginning of the modern Games in 1896 in Athens. Every year over 13,000 athletes from around the globe compete in over 400 events during the summer games so the likelihood of a British winner is fairly high. At the Beijing Games in 2008 Great Britain took 47 medals, 19 of them gold.

The Team GB scoring rate at the winter games is an entirely different matter though. Successes are hard fought and a rare occurrence. In fact, over the past 5 Winter Olympics, Team GB has won just 6 medals, with only one of them gold. GB's total medal count over all Winter Olympics is just 21 medals, with 8 of them gold. We have only scored gold medals in three different winter Olympic sports. But that doesn't mean we haven't had an interesting selection of Winter Olympic heroes.

The bronze medal won by the British team in the four man bob event of 1998 in Nagano was totally unexpected and a special occasion in more ways than one. For an event that is timed down to the split second, Team GB clocked exactly the same time as the French team, so unusually both teams were awarded a bronze medal. It was a remarkable performance as Great Britain doesn't even have a bobsleigh run, so all training had to be done abroad. Bobsleigh medals are usually won by nations such as Switzerland, Italy, Germany or the United States, so when the GB two-man bob team of Nash and Dixon took gold at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck in Austria ahead of two Italian teams everyone was surprised. The team have since had a curve at the St Moritz Olympic bob run named after them. Those lack of facilities is slowly being rectified as more and more indoor ski slopes and snowboarding centres are being built, allowing more amateurs to try out winter sports and providing training opportunities for Olympic hopefuls.

Another British hero that no-one can forget is Eddie "the eagle" Edwards who represented tean GB in the ski jumping event at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Canada. Michael Edwards was a humble plasterer from Cheltenham when he paid for himself to take part in the Winter Olympics. He must have known he had little chance, yet still realised his dream. Being very short-sighted he was forced to wear glasses that fogged up beneath his goggles and he was almost 10kg heavier than any other competitor. As expected he came last in both the 70m and 90m events but apparently he was the first athlete ever to get a mentioned in the closing speech of the games. He tried and failed to qualify for the next three Winter Olympics, a victim of a rule that was introduced by the Olympic authorities specifically to prevent people like him competing in the games and potentially making a mockery of a sport.

Skating is where Team GB has scored most of its Olympic gold medals. Names like Torvill and Dean, Cousins and Curry have all established their place in British sporting history due to skating golds at the Olympics. John Curry in 1976 and Robin Cousins in 1980 both won gold in the men's figure skating competition.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are the most successful British Olympic ice dance pairing. They first gained Olympic success with a gold at the 1984 Sarajevo games and then repeated medal success a decade later with a bronze at Lillehammer in 1994. Ice dancing is a very British event though. The first world championships in the discipline took place in 1952 and, amazingly, British pairs won 12 of the first 16 World Championships. It became an Olympic event in 1976 and next year in Vancouver Great Britain are likely to be best represented by brother and sister pairing Sinead and John Kerr. The Kerrs have been British National Champions for the past six years, won a Bronze medal in the 2009 European Championships and came 7th in the 2009 World Championships. At the end of November 2009 Sinead and John Kerr will be challenging for the British Championships again and fighting for a place at the 2010 Vancouver games.

Finally we can look back to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City when it seemed everyone in Britain was awake late into the night watching Rhona Martin lead her British womens curling team to victory by perfectly placing her final stone, named later the "The Stone of Destiny", to beat the Swiss team for the gold medal. It was Team GB's only medal success of the games and was more memorable for it.

New indoor ski slope and snowboarding centres are appearing all over the world and especially in Great Britain. Mark Bartley explains how these indoor snow sport facilities are growing in popularity and can make all the difference for Olympic athletes.
Mark Bartley is a well respected writer on consumer affairs and a customer champion. He has experience in several industries including travel, finance, retail and leisure. He seeks to provide useful information from an unbiased viewpoint and helps people understand complicated market areas and find the best deals or services available.
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