Five Winter Olympic Sports Team GB Will Never Master as Medal Drought Continues
Agonising near-misses have characterised Great Britain's 2026 Winter Olympics campaign so far, with athletes like Kirsty Muir and Mia Brookes finishing fourth in their respective events, leaving the team without a medal. Fractions of points, marginal over-rotations, and steps out of twizzles have defined this narrative of frustration.
Yet, there are times when even such near misses would represent significant progress for Team GB hopefuls. Certain winter sports have peaks—or even foothills—that remain utterly unconquerable for home nation athletes, despite heavily-funded performance programmes.
Luge
Shove a Briton down an ice chute head-first in skeleton, and the world seems to be their oyster. Ask them to lie back in luge, and it is a completely different story. Britain's first Olympic luger, Gordon Porteous, was disqualified from the 1964 Games for failing to cross the finish line feet-first. The nation's best ever luge result remains a modest 15th place by Jeremy Palmer-Tomkinson at Lake Placid in 1980.
Biathlon
Over two dozen British competitors have strapped on smallbore rifles and skied off into the snowbound Olympic countryside since biathlon made its debut in its modern form in 1960. A sport with deep roots in ancient hunter-gathering techniques, they could not have performed much worse if they had paused en route to pick nuts and berries. No British athlete has ever come close to challenging for a medal in this demanding discipline.
Ski Jumping
It was a case of what might have been for Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, who blamed his pair of last-place finishes in Calgary in 1988 on a pair of misted-up glasses. Edwards proved so embarrassing to the officials at the British Olympic Association that they introduced stringent new qualifying criteria designed to deter would-be imitators. Team GB's only subsequent ski-jumper, Glynn Pedersen, finished 43rd and 48th in his two events in 2002, highlighting the ongoing struggle.
Nordic Combined
Blending cross-country skiing and ski jumping, Nordic Combined evolved in Norway in the late 19th century as a means to identify the ultimate versatile skier. Clearly, an athlete from Cornwall, whose highest peak is the 420-metre Brown Willy, was always going to be disadvantaged. So credit to Percy Legard, Britain's only ever competitor in the discipline, who panted home in 45th place in 1936, a feat that remains unmatched.
Speed Skating
Blame global warming for Britain's lack of long-track speed skaters. For the first few Winter Olympics, multiple athletes—most of whom were Norfolk-based and honed their skills on East Anglia's frozen fens—represented the Union Jack. Since the Fens stopped freezing regularly, long track hopes have melted away. Dutch-born Cornelius Kersten and his partner, Ellia Smeding, ended a 30-year absence when they raced for GB in Beijing in 2022, but medal prospects remain distant.
