Britain's biggest Olympic squad set to make history

LONDON -- Britain is sending its largest ever team to the Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, with a target to beat its best ever haul of medals. Team GB has never won more than four medals, a feat achieved just twice in 1924 and again at the last games in 2014.

Of the 22 winter Olympics held since 1924, Britain came away empty handed on six occasions. The British Olympic Association (BOA) is hopeful its 59-strong team, three more than its previous high four years ago, will return from South Korea with the highest ever number of medals.

BOA has listed five to watch in South Korea, including Lizzy Yarnold who four years ago in Sochi, Russia, became the 10th British athlete to strike gold in the winter Olympics.

Yarnold added to her Olympic gold by becoming world champion, European champion and World Cup champion. The former heptathlete took a sabbatical from the sport but returned in 2016, reinvigorated and ready to launch her assault on another Olympic title in South Korea.

In her comeback season she recorded one World Cup podium and took bronze at the World Championships.

Eve Muirhead led her team to Olympic bronze at Sochi 2014, and World Championship gold in 2013. Muirhead herself is a four-time junior World Champion and won the European Curling Championships in 2011. The 27-year-old Scot teams up with Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams and Lauren Gray, making up Team Muirhead, hoping to go two better than 2014 and emulate the feat of their compatriots in Salt Lake City 2002 - when Britain won gold in the event.

Dave Ryding shocked the Alpine skiing world when he claimed Britain's first World Cup skiing podium in 36 years when he took slalom silver in Kitzbuhel, last January.

Ryding has been steadily improving in recent years and almost made another trip to the podium in Stockholm in the parallel slalom, but finished an agonising fourth, just 0.06s off a bronze medal. This season he already has four World Cup top-tens to his name, including a fourth at the Oslo city event.

There's not much left for Elise Christie, a 27-year-old Scot, to achieve in the world of short track speed skating, but leaving Sochi 2014 empty-handed means she has a score to settle with the Olympic Winter Games in 2018.

Christie became the first British skater to win two medals at a World Championships, following that in 2016 by setting a world record in the 500 meters, retaining her European overall title and taking 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m crowns. A year later she truly shone, picking up a hat-trick of gold medals at the World Championships.

A thigh injury has blighted her PyeongChang preparations, but she has shown she is still in medal-winning form with a bronze and a gold from this season's World Cup.

Described by Team GB as the "young pretender", Izzy Atkin is a teenager with a big future in front of her. At 18 she became the first British woman to win a World Cup ski slopestyle event when she triumphed in Silvaplana, Switzerland, last March.

Atkins quickly followed up that success with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain. This season she has finished seventh and third in her two World Cup appearances and has one last run out at the Winter X-Games to come, before heading to PyeongChang to potentially make more history.

Family rivalry will be played out on the snow-covered slopes thanks to sisters Katie and Molly Summerhayes. They are both seeking gold in different events.

The sisters from the city of Sheffield, are included in Team GB's freestyle skiing squad.

Katie Summerhayes, 22, takes part in the women's slope style, while young sibling Molly, 20, competes in the women's half pipe.

Katie Summerhayes is considered one of Britain's best medal chances having finished seventh four years ago and won a world silver medal in 2015. She will compete in the slopestyle event, which sees skiers judged as they perform a dizzying array of tricks and jumps on a downhill course pitted with obstacles.

Her younger sister will make her first Olympic appearance in the halfpipe, in which she won the world junior title three years ago.

Katie commented: "Having Molly to share the experience with me is great. I've told her so much about last time and now she gets to share it with me."

Making a second Games team has not been easy for the older Summerhayes sister who has been off the snow since picking up an injury last month, only returning to action this week.

"Four years ago I almost missed out through injury and I feared the same thing was going to happen again," she said.

Molly, 20, was part of her sister's cheering squad in Sochi and admitted the experience only made her more determined to be part of it, with the pair only the fourth British sisters to compete at the games.

"I think I've got an idea of the pressure from watching her last time but I also saw how much fun she had and what an experience and privilege it is to compete for your country," said Molly.

"I just really want to go out and have a good time and perform the best I can. I'm trying not to set myself any goals but I want to come home with no regrets."

At PyeongChang 2018, Team GB will compete in 11 of the 15 disciplines; Alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, luge, short track speed skating, skeleton and snowboarding.

Of the 11, freestyle skiing will see the highest number of athletes compete, 11, while Amanda Lightfoot will be the sole Team GB biathlete in South Korea.

Luge is the only sport to return to Team GB after missing out at Sochi 2014, while five snowboarders are set to compete in big air as the event makes its Olympic debut.

The 59-strong team sees 34 men and 25 women selected, while 33 of the team will compete on ice in PyeongChang and 26 on snow.

Mike Hay, Team GB Chef de Mission, said: "With the team fully selected for PyeongChang 2018, I'm delighted to welcome all 59 athletes to Team GB. It's a great milestone in our preparations for the Games to know our complete delegation travelling out to South Korea and the countdown is now firmly on for the Opening Ceremony on 9th February.

"Not only is this the largest team we've ever taken to a Winter Olympics but I feel it is also the most talented. Given results over the last two years at elite level, there is potential for success across a broader range of sports than ever before and I'm confident that with this group of athletes we can make history once again."