Being selected for Team GB requires you to be the best in Britain but some Winter Olympians still have to fight for bragging rights within their own family.
Three sets of siblings across two disciplines have booked their spots in Beijing for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.
Sisters Izzy and Zoe Atkin and Leonie and Makayla Gerken Schofield will compete in freestyle skiing, while Farrell and Niall Treacy will take to the ice in the short track speed skating.
Atkin sisters
Izzy Atkin brought home Britain’s first ever Olympic medal on skis at PyeongChang 2018 and will be hoping to repeat the trick in China, although she is currently battling her way back from a pelvis injury.
This time around she will be accompanied by her teenage sister Zoe with the 19-year-old, who is five years her junior, a genuine medal contender herself having excelled in the halfpipe.
In 2021, Zoe won world halfpipe bronze in Aspen to stamp her own mark on the circuit having seen her sister bring home the major medals previously.
Born to a British father and a Malaysian mother in the US, the Atkin sisters are based in Utah and grew up learning to ski on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
Zoe revealed how delighted she was to make Izzy proud after her first World Cup win back in 2019 and her elder sister will have been leaning on her during her rehab from a broken pelvis which threatened to rule her out of the Games.
Gerken Schofield duo
Mogul skiers Leonie and Makayla Gerken Schofield will hit the slopes in Beijing on the biggest stage of all.
Born in Chelmsford, Essex but having moved to the French alps as young children, the pair had the perk of being able to walk to the piste from the family home in Chatel.
Younger sister Makayla, 22, said: “It's helped massively because people don't realise just how expensive travel, competing and equipment can be as an athlete in this sport.”
Leonie, 23, went through injury hell between 2017 and 2019 after tearing knee ligaments, dislocating a shoulder and breaking her back derailing her hopes of making it to PyeongChang and after fighting back to full fitness she will be even more determined to impress in Beijing.
Leonie’s twin Tom, who narrowly missed out on Beijing 2022 selection, is also a mogul skier and won Britain’s first individual World Cup moguls medal with silver in Krasnoyarsk, Russia just before the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Treacy brothers
The rivalry between short-track stars Farrell and Niall Treacy got a little too close for comfort when they wiped each other out at World Cup event in Japan back in October.
Four years after Farrell Treacy, 26, became the first member of the clan to represent Team GB on the biggest stage, his little brother Niall will be joining him, with both named as part of a three-strong short track speed skating squad.
A dream that’s 13 years old………I’m going to be an Olympian
— Niall Treacy (@NiallTreacy1) December 20, 2021
Unbelievably proud to announce I’ve been selected to represent Great Britain at Beijing for the Winter Olympics 🇬🇧
Thanks to all who have made this happen, a post will be dedicated to everyone involved! pic.twitter.com/PpNPeLbZAa
And the pair - who are both competing in the 1000m - are hoping there will be no such issues if they meet again when they take to the start line in Beijing.
Farrell, who is also going in the 1500m, said: “It’s an incredible achievement for the whole family, we’re really excited about it. It’s going to be special seeing two Treacys on the start list.
“But the last time we raced together in the ranking final, he wiped me out. So, we’ll see how we go this time!
“He hit a block and went down and took me out. So, it didn’t work out from the point of view where we were trying to get as many ranking points as we could.
“The way the draw is done, they normally keep countries apart so it would only be if we get to finals or semi-finals that we could meet. If we’re there, that would be a fantastic achievement and would be incredible.”
Niall, 21, will be making his Olympic debut and will undoubtedly be nervous himself but it is mum Catherine who will suffer most if the two are drawn together.
Niall explained: “My mum hates watching us race normally, let alone when we’re racing each other, because she thinks there’s too much drama and she gets too nervous.
“But she can’t stand the thought of us racing each other. She despises it.”