GB sliders boost medal hopes with impressive outings in skeleton heats

She spent her childhood training to be an acrobat, but Tabby Stoecker now performs her most death-defying stunt inches from the ground.

After a solid first day in Cortina, the 25-year-old Londoner believes she can soar to the Olympic skeleton podium.

With speeds reaching 125kph, skeleton is not a sport for the faint-hearted, but it appears to be the winter sport for Great Britain. While Team GB early medal prospects struggle across the Alps and Dolomites, hopes remain high that this bizarre discipline, where athletes hurl themselves headfirst down an icy track on a hi-tech tea tray, will take up the slack.

Matt Weston has been unstoppable in the men’s event, while Stoecker leads a trio of Brits in contention ahead of tomorrow’s women’s finale. Then there is the mixed team event still to come.

Gold may well be beyond Stoecker here, but a medal is far from out of the question in a discipline where even the slightest error can see you plummet down both the standings and the track.

The 25-year-old, who has emerged as a real force on the World Cup circuit, has been careering around the Cortina Sliding Centre like a rocket ship all week, regularly finishing in the top three in training.

She was third after her first run but slipped back slightly in her second, 0.53s off gold and 0.40s off bronze. Freya Tarbit is sixth and Amelia Coltman ninth.

The trio clearly like this venue, unlike the locals, who are wondering just what they are going to do with a new £110m track that snakes around the north of a town of just 5,000 residents. Sliding is hardly the sport of the people, and part of an ancient woodland was even felled to build it.

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But that is for another day, and Stoecker will hope tomorrow is hers. Though Tarbit and Coltman are in contention and cannot be discounted, she is more likely to take on Austria’s overnight leader Janine Flock, having finished third in the World Cup overall standings.

“The women’s field is anyone’s on any day, it’s really exciting,” she said.

“It’s definitely not over. It’s a four-heat race, so if you take just what you do on day one and let that defeat you, the race is already over, right?

“I’m still feeling good. You’ve got to keep your mindset sharp. There were a few mistakes in there, which was a shame because my practices were better than that.

“It is my first Games. I think the nerves set in a bit. But I am far from done and tomorrow this is anybody’s.”

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Stoecker did not grow up wanting to be a skeleton athlete. At 11, she committed to the circus and dreamt of Cirque du Soleil. She trained for up to 25 hours a week in acrobatics and the flying trapeze, and had never stepped into a gym before she turned up at a talent ID session.

“My background in trapeze gave me body awareness, fearlessness and adrenaline tolerance,” Stoecker said. “Skills that translate surprisingly well to skeleton.”

You bet. Tarbit, in contrast, used to pull pints at the White Swan pub in Upbrook, Derbyshire, while Coltman once worked at McDonald’s.

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All three complained of minor errors on their second runs. Stoecker’s was the seventh fastest overall, dropping her from 0.18s off the lead to 0.53s, while Tarbit was happiest with hers, the joint fourth fastest.

“It’s really exciting, we are all in it and anyone can bring back a medal,” she said.

“That was one of the runs of my life.”

Flock, meanwhile, is hoping for the run of hers too. A four-time European champion, she has never won a major championship gold and this, her fourth Olympics, may be her last chance.

Germany’s Susanne Kreher is just 0.04s behind Flock, while her team-mate Jacqueline Pfeifer is 0.13s off the lead.

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