Day 1 Preview: Ormerod's Olympic debut at last

Beijing 2022 04 Feb 22

The sight of Team GB stalwarts Eve Muirhead and Dave Ryding proudly carrying the Union Jack at the opening ceremony can mean only one thing, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games are officially up and running.

Snowboarder Katie Ormerod has the honour of being Team GB’s first athlete in competitive action on Day 1 and it has been quite the journey to the slopestyle startline for the 24-year-old.

Injury scuppered the former gymnast’s chances of being selected for Sochi 2014 and it struck in an even more heartbreaking manner four years ago when she broke her wrist and heel on the eve of the Games having arrived at PyeongChang 2018 as a hot medal favourite.

Seven operations and a full year of rehab was not enough to derail Ormerod’s trajectory and two years ago she became the first Brit to win an overall World Cup snowboard title.

Jenny Jones won Team GB’s first medal on snow when taking slopestyle bronze in 2014 and it is in the very same event that Ormerod - who will also go in the Big Air - will get her Games underway with the first two qualification runs on Saturday morning.

In truth, the action began well before the opening ceremony on Wednesday when Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds became the first Team GB pair to compete in the mixed doubles curling at the Ice Cube.

The reigning world champions have started their campaign strongly with wins over Sweden, Canada and Australia with a defeat to 2018 Olympic silver medallists Switzerland the only blot on their record.

Mouat, who will skip the men’s team later in the Games, and Dodds, who will be an integral member of Team Muirhead in the women’s competition, face the Czech Republic first up on Saturday afternoon.

The childhood friends, who sit joint second in the rankings with the top four making the semi-finals after the round robin stage, are then back on the ice in the evening in a mouth-watering match-up with unbeaten leaders Italy.

Before that, however, attention will turn to the Genting Snow Park where freestyle skier Will Feneley has a second chance to make the men’s moguls final.

Feneley put down a solid run on Thursday finishing 23rd, but if he can make it into the top ten after Saturday’s second run then he will join those who met that criteria first time around in the evening’s final.

It’s a family affair for Team GB as the short track speed skating gets underway at the National Speed Skating Oval with Niall Treacy making his Olympic debut in the 1000m alongside his brother Farrell, who finished 14th at PyeongChang 2018.

Shortly before the men’s heats, the most experienced of the short track team, Kathryn Thomson, will kickstart her second consecutive Games in the women’s 500m, the first of her three events.

Alongside the evening’s curling, Day 1 action will conclude in Yanqing where Rupert Staudinger starts the sliding with his first two luge runs.

It will be an emotional occasion for the 24-year-old who will be competing in honour of his friend, PyeongChang 2018 teammate and three-time Olympian AJ Rosen who sadly passed away in December aged 37 with cancer.

Staudinger’s helmet will bear the message ‘rest in peace AJ' as he bids to improve on the 33rd-place finish he achieved in South Korea four years ago.