The Christmas decorations are down for another year and January is upon us but at last we can finally say the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games are next month.
Just over five weeks remain until the competition in South Korea gets underway but between then and now plenty of action is still to come for British athletes on snow and ice.
Events may have been few and far between over the festive period but it all hots up again this week, so there’s no better time to get back on the Path to PyeongChang with our weekly round-up.
It was a season-best result too for Dave Ryding as he narrowly missed out on bronze in the parallel slalom at the City Event in Oslo.
Ryding stunned the crowds in his quarter-final as he pipped World No.1 Marcel Hirscher to the line, before crashing out in the first run of his semi-final against Michael Matt.
‘The Rocket’ dusted himself down for the small final but it was a narrow defeat for the Brit, edged out of the medals by Linus Strasser by just 0.1 seconds.
Alex Tilley closed out her year with a 24th place finish in the giant slalom in Lienz, with both Ryding and Tilley set to return to the slopes later this week as the Alpine World Cup continues in Zagreb.
The cross-country World Cup moved to Switzerland this week as the Tour de Ski got underway, and it proved a brilliant end to 2017 for Andrew Young as he secured his best result of the season to date.
Both Young and Andrew Musgrave – who won World Cup bronze in Italy last month – made it through the men’s sprint prologue and though Musgrave bowed out in the quarter-finals, Young made it through to the final 12.
In his semi-final, Young stayed with the front-runners through the first kilometre but missed out on a place in the final, though he finished tenth overall.
“It feels good to be back in the top 30 so I’m pretty pleased about that,” said Young.
“I made a few technical errors on the second lap [of the prologue] but still finished 16th – any top 30 in this field is good so I was happy with that.”
In Sunday’s 15km freestyle, Musgrave saw out the year with a 30th place finish before following that up with 24th in the 15km freestyle pursuit.
Team GB’s sliders have taken their place on the Olympic Winter podium at the last four Games and they will certainly be keen to make sure that run doesn’t end in PyeongChang.
Laura Deas is in a good place as she looks to secure her seat on the plane to South Korea, with four top-seven finishes so far this season for the 29-year-old and finishing within a hundredth of a second of a European bronze medal.
The World Cup rolls into Altenberg, Germany, later this week with reigning Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold also set to headline the British female contingent on the ice, while Dom Parsons will lead the male charge.
After the conclusion of the skeleton competition, Britain’s bobsleigh stars will take to the Altenberg track with Bradley Hall and Lamin Deen’s sleds looking to continue the fine form that saw them both take home World Cup medals in 2017.
Team Hall won Britain’s first World Cup medal in four years with bronze in Park City before Team Deen clinched silver in Whistler a week later.
Both will be looking to start the new year with a bang and firmly cement their place among the contenders for the medals in PyeongChang – can they reproduce their World Cup magic in 2018?
It’s fair to say 2017 was a year to remember for all the wrong reasons for Lloyd Wallace but Britain’s top aerial skier will be back on the slopes this weekend as the World Cup descends on Moscow.
Wallace was on a routine training day in Switzerland in August when he suffered a horror crash that saw him put into an induced coma.
Remarkably, he was back on the slopes two months later and has set his sights on a maiden Winter Olympic appearance in PyeongChang – following in the footsteps of his Olympian parents who both skied for Great Britain.
Wallace finished 19th in his first World Cup appearance of the season in Secret Garden, China, last month before placing 34th the following day, and will be keen to amass plenty more qualification points as the Games edge ever closer.
The frantic start to 2018 continues for Musgrave and Young as the Tour de Ski continues in Oberstdorf.
Elsewhere, Amanda Lightfoot and Scott Dixon will be in biathlon action in Oberhof as the fourth World Cup of the season kicks off in Germany. Sportsbeat 2018