Britain’s winter sport stars are aiming for Olympic glory in Beijing as the Games officially get under way today.

Among the British athletes contending for medals is a nurse who worked on the NHS frontline during the pandemic; a snowboarder who had to learn to walk again after a horrific injury; and a duo hoping to emulate the success of Torvill and Dean.

Here, Sky News looks at Team GB’s best hopes at the Winter Olympics – including some who have beaten the odds to compete – as they aim to surpass the five medals won in Pyeongchang four years ago.

Vicky Wright and curling team

Curler Vicky Wright is going for gold in Beijing after working on the NHS frontline in the fight against coronavirus.

The 28-year-old is a surgical ward nurse at Forth Valley Hospital in Larbert, Scotland, and balances her medical career with competing on the ice.

She is part of the women’s curling team led by skip Eve Muirhead, who guided Britain to a bronze medal at the 2014 Sochi Games.

The five-strong squad – which also features Jennifer Dodds, Hailey Duff and Mili Smith – are hoping to repeat the success of Rhona Martin’s all-conquering team that won Olympic gold in Salt Lake City 20 years ago.

Wright told Sky Sports News that her decision to return to full-time nursing at the start of the pandemic in 2020 was a “no brainer”.

Describing the conditions as she worked 12-and-a-half hour shifts in full PPE, she said: “You are tired, you are hot, you are thirsty, but you get through it… no matter how hard you find it there is always someone worse off and you power through.”

Wright is engaged to fellow curler Greg Drummond – who won Olympic silver in Sochi in 2014 – and the couple are reportedly set to tie the knot in July.

Snowboarder Katie Ormerod

Snowboarder Katie Ormerod suffered a horrific injury which meant she had to learn to walk again to compete at the Beijing Games.

Two days before the 2018 Winter Olympics, Ormerod crashed during a practice run and split her heel bone in half, with medics taking two hours to cut her out of her boot.

The 24-year-old said: “It was a good four months before I could actually walk again. I was in a wheelchair and on crutches for a very long time.

“I had to work extremely hard to get back from that – seven operations, a full year of rehab, and 18 months before actually getting back into competition.”

Ormerod, from Brighouse in Yorkshire, came back with a bang as she became the first Briton to win a slopestyle World Cup title in 2020 and is aiming for gold in Beijing.

Figure skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson

It’s the competition that produced one of the most iconic sporting moments in British history as Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won Olympic gold with their famous Bolero routine 38 years ago.

Now, figure skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson are aiming to follow in the footsteps of the famous pair at the Beijing Games.

Making their Olympic debuts, the duo will perform a rhythm dance routine to a Kiss medley before a free dance to songs from The Lion King.

Born in the US to Canadian parents, 22-year-old Fear moved to London at the age of two and took up skating aged just five.

Gibson, meanwhile, had a different path growing up in Prestwick, on the outskirts of Glasgow, where his main passion as a youngster was football.

He was inspired to take up figure skating after watching the first series of Dancing On Ice, starring Torvill and Dean.

Montell Douglas

Montell Douglas is the first woman to represent Britain at both the summer and winter Olympics.

The 36-year-old Londoner will compete in the two-person bobsleigh at the Beijing Games, 14 years after she ran in the 100-metre sprint at the 2008 Olympics in the same city.

During her athletics career, Douglas set a British women’s 100m record of 11.05 – beating a previous best that had stood for 27 years.

She said she was recruited to take part in the bobsleigh event because the team was looking for “bigger, faster, stronger girls”.

Skeleton racer Laura Deas

It’s been 34 years since “Eddie the Eagle” crashed and burned at the Calgary Winter Games, but Laura Deas has said she revels in the hapless ski jumper’s Olympic legacy.

Deas won a surprise Olympic bronze in the skeleton in 2018 and is one of Britain’s strongest medal hopes at the Beijing Games.

“I still think with the British public there is still the slight sense that we are all like ‘Eddie the Eagle’,” she said.

“On one hand we’re very well funded and professional, but on the other we can’t quite shake this perception of being slightly off-the-wall and a bit nuts, and I quite like that.”

Mixed Doubles curlers Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds

Scottish duo Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds were crowned world champions last year in their first international event competing together.

However Mouat, 27, and Dodds, 30, have long been friends after they first first met as children at Gogar Park curling club in Edinburgh.

Mouat, who is also skippering the men’s curling team, recently spoke of the support he received from the sport when he came out as gay.

He told Sky Sports News: “Generally, when I was growing up, curling was full of people from the farming community.

“I was a bit nervous of that community because I wasn’t sure how they would take it.”

He added: “And as soon as I came out, it wasn’t even an issue.”

Freestyle skier Kirsty Muir

Teenager Kirsty Muir has been hailed a “once in a generation talent” by coach Lesley McKenna.

The 17-year-old from Aberdeen is the youngest member of the 50-strong GB team for the Beijing Games but is already used to success in major competitions.

She won a silver medal at the 2020 Youth Olympics aged 15 despite admitting to struggling with the pressure of the event.

“I was scared to hurt myself because I wanted to get to these Olympics so much,” she said.

Muir, who first picked up her first pair of skis when she was just three years old, is set to compete in both the ski slopestyle and Big Air disciplines in Beijing.

Alpine ski racer Dave Ryding

Dave Ryding made history last month as he became the first British skier to win an alpine World Cup gold medal.

The 35-year-old also became the oldest winner of a men’s World Cup slalom – and is now established as a serious medal contender at the Beijing Olympics.

“I guess there’s life in the old dog yet,” he said.

Ryding, who is originally from Bretherton near Chorley in Lancashire, learned to ski on dry slopes and only skied on snow for the first time at the age of 12.

Speed-skaters Ellia Smeding and Cornelius Kersten

Ellia Smeding is the first British woman to compete in the Olympic long-track speed-skating for 42 years, while Cornelius Kersten is the first man to represent Britain in the event for 30 years.

The couple run a coffee business together which they started to help fund their quest to reach the Beijing Games.

Born in England to a British mother and a Dutch father, Smeding moved to Holland at a young age in order to learn the language and has won a remarkable 42 speed-skating gold medals.

Kersten was born in the Netherlands and has a British mother.

Snowboarder Charlotte Bankes

Reigning snowboard-cross world champion Charlotte Bankes is one of Team GB’s best medal prospects.

It is the 26-year-old’s first Olympics representing Britain, having competed at two other Games for France.

Born in Hemel Hempstead, she moved to France when she was four and represented the country at both the Sochi and Pyeongchang Olympics before opting to switch to the nation of her birth.

Bankes, who competes in the high-octane discipline of snowboard-cross, marked the occasion by surging to World Championship gold earlier this year, instantly raising hopes of a repeat performance in Beijing.

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